


This Has Always Been Enough

by JaxtonsTrash



Category: Mushishi
Genre: M/M, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Pre-Canon, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, casefic, like half the point of this entire thing is the pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 61,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23838928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaxtonsTrash/pseuds/JaxtonsTrash
Summary: “Let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow.”  ― J.M. Barrie-When Ginko passes through the village by the sea, he finds his friend playing host to a strange and unknown mushi. It sits like a crown of flowers upon the doctor's head, and like a bed of thorns inside his chest. Adashino, for his part, will never speak of what nests in his ribs, and he follows Ginko in search of answers he may already have.-This has NOT been abandoned, I'm just on a brain break that may last til end of January 2021.
Relationships: Adashino & Ginko (Mushishi), Adashino & Karibusa Tanyuu, Adashino/Ginko (Mushishi)
Comments: 93
Kudos: 124





	1. Incredibly Blue

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> When I find myself needing comfort, for whatever reason, I incessantly re-watch and re-read Mushi-shi. The atmosphere and the storytelling are so gentle and bittersweet, it just leaves me feeling completely at ease no matter how I felt before. Even though I love how the series is very episodic, sometimes I do wish we could stop for a moment in time and take a look at some of the relationships and characters a little more closely.
> 
> So. This fandom is very small, and I have been a lurker for a while... finally I was possessed by myself to write some content for it. Let me know how I did, as I normally only write original fiction.

Ginko descended the mountain slowly, eye straying frequently from the path before him as he tilted his gaze towards the sea. It had been such a long time since he’d last passed through this place, it was nearly beginning to feel nostalgic to return. His heart pulled him forward but his feet dragged, and there was a nagging nervousness he wasn’t used to that seemed to chase his wake.

His visits used to be frequent but, well, some things had caught up and before he’d realised it two seasons had passed by while he blinked. Pausing for a moment to stub out his cigarette, and then immediately light a new one, Ginko wondered if everything in the town below would be as he remembered. Would the villagers remember him at all? Would he be welcomed? Perhaps things had changed more than even he could have imagined… at the least, the village was still standing in one piece.

He meandered his way towards the coast, pausing along the edge of the beach and wandering back up towards some of the brush, taking his time and breathing in the smell of the ocean. Ginko allowed himself once again to pause, to close his eye and feel the openness of the ocean before him, to inhale deeply the wind as it rushed by. He’d spent so long on the rugged mountain trail, chased by fog and the heavy humidity of spring, it was nearly like relief to taste salt in the air and a soft breeze against his skin. It was light, gentle, asking him a question he was not sure he understood enough to respond to. Perhaps the question it asked had no answer at all.

There was most certainly something about this place, though, that left him feeling as though he ought to answer it anyway.

Ginko sighed and dragged himself back to the path after many long minutes, eye trailing to where the sun was beginning to dip lower in the sky, threatening dusk despite how the mushi-shi was nearly certain he’d not stalled that long. Apparently he had. Hiking his pack up his shoulders, he followed the edge of the rock and sand into the town. 

His feet brought him along the path automatically, as though it was more of a feeling than a memory guiding his way. He tried to be inconspicuous about his passing through-- head bowed, hands in his pockets, a lazy slouch to his shoulders-- but out of the corner of his eye he could see villagers poking their faces out of their houses, children stalling where they played, their gazes trailing after him. None were malicious, of course, but even after years of it Ginko never quite gotten used to the curiosity that people failed to hide, and yet were too shy to bare openly at once. The corners of his lips turned up as he thought about it. It was such a strange thing…

His feet carried him where he needed to be, and thoughts of the people whose gazes lingered upon him soon left his mind. Ginko stopped on a familiar porch and knocked on the wood of the doorframe. Behind him, he could hear only the sound of the waves against the shore.

The door slid open, and before the person inside could say anything more, Ginko leaned back onto his heels and grinned at his friend. “Hey.”

Adashino’s face was a mask of surprise, but he managed a stuttered, " _Ginko_?”

The mushi-shi nodded, taking his cigarette out of his mouth. “Can I come in?”

The doctor stepped back, eyes still rimmed with confusion, but beckoned his friend inside with a wave of his hand. “Of course, of course!” He shuffled across the room quickly, then, and began picking things up. “It’s good to know you’re not dead! Come in!”

Ginko followed his movements with interest, stepping through the threshold and shrugging off his backpack as the doctor tidied. For a man who was often perceived as put-together, the doctor in that moment was anything but. Adashino’s home was a mess, but this didn’t surprise the mushi-shi whatsoever-- this was very much what he had expected to walk into, not having sent a letter in advance.

Scrolls were littered everywhere, small dishes of what could either be half-finished teas or diluted mixes of ink were scattered across the room. Ink brushes were tossed aside with abandon, although there were three that were set up neatly beside an inkstone and a half-filled roll of paper that Ginko took notice of. He could see in one corner a pile of clothing-- juban, obi, even what looked to be an expensively-embroidered kimono simply tossed into the pile and left to crease. There were bottles and baskets scattered everywhere, no order whatsoever to where they lay or how. Adashino’s futon was nowhere to be found, but Ginko figured it must be under one of mess of objects around the room, tucked up somewhere. Somehow, this all seemed to fit with who Adashino was when no one was looking, and the mushi-shi had to smile despite himself.

“Sorry about the mess,” Adashino muttered, though Ginko wasn’t sure if he was speaking as a true apology or simply because he was embarrassed about having been caught off-guard. “It’s been a few days since I’ve had anyone by, and I was just in the middle of transcribing this text a friend lent me…” he trailed off, shoving several scrolls together and starting to collect the brushes that were all over the floor. Ginko thought it was probably more than a _few_ days the doctor had been alone, but he left that thought in his head. “What brings you by without a letter?”

Ginko paused for a moment to think about his answer, but the silence stretched longer than he intended. He was lost for a moment in thought as looked at his friend, fingers stained with ink and dark hair sticking up in every possible direction, eyes rimmed with sleepless circles but filled with energy… He had no idea what had brought him by to see him, now that he thought about it. He had felt like something was missing from his heart, maybe.

“I was just passing by,” he said instead. 

His friend stood up and narrowed his eyes at him-- though he said nothing on the strangeness of it, Ginko could see the doctor could tell he wasn’t being entirely honest. But rather than be forward, he only pointed at Ginko’s wooden pack. “Did you bring anything interesting, at least?”

Ginko opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out. For a moment he was completely still, staring at Adashino. His eye fell to his friend’s temple, and widened in surprise.

Adashino, seeing Ginko’s expression, rubbed the back of his hand on his jaw. “Do I… have something on my face?” Adashino tucked the brushes he held into one hand and scrubbed his left cheek with the heel of his palm, grimacing. “I probably should have washed before answering the door.”

“How… how long has that been there?” Ginko found himself asking; he was suddenly breathless. His fingers moved on their own, reaching out towards Adashino without him so much as thinking about it.

At the doctor’s temple was a small, blue flower, poking through the mess of his hair. 

“Has what?” Adashino pushed Ginko’s hand away, but there was no malice in it. He touched his temple in confusion, running his fingers through his hair. 

Ginko dropped his hand to his side, confused.

“Is there something stuck? How embarrassing,” Adashino added, setting the brushes he held down on the ground in order to part through his hair with two hands. “I didn’t think I was _that_ bad…” But no matter how he combed his hair through, the flower stayed rooted where it was.

It was only then that Ginko realised the flower had a soft, ethereal glow to it, bright against the doctor’s dark hair. _Too_ bright.

He felt his throat grow tight.

“It was nothing,” the mushi-shi forced himself to say, but it was far too quick for his friend not to have noticed. He forced a smile as well, and shook his head. “Forget the mess, do you have food?” 

Surely whatever it was couldn’t be causing trouble.

#  🌱

Adashino’s futon made an appearance from underneath the haphazard pile of clothing, and after mouthing off a fair bit about it the doctor had also managed to reign in the rest of the mess that had been his house. Ginko sat against his pack in one corner and smoked while he watched, reminding Adashino every now and again about a spot he’d missed, or a dish that didn’t have a home. He’d had to duck at one point as a half-dozen chopsticks went flying towards his head, Adashino complaining that he was worse than useless just sitting and watching, and he might as well just sleep outside. Ginko simply laughed.

He loved how easy things were, and for many hours he forgot his worry.

As night passed overhead, Ginko found himself laying awake and staring at the ceiling, sleep evading him for no reason he could name. Mushi floated about lazily, their gentle hum somehow not enough to lull him off to sleep. He squinted at them, unsure if he could recall the last time there had been this many around Adashino’s house the last time he’d been through. It usually took a few days for them to catch up, to be hanging around as they were. Spring was a strange season…

Ginko rolled to his side and squinted over at his friend, a worrisome thought coming to mind. Adashino was none the wiser: fast asleep, limbs sticking out at awkward angles and his blankets in a tangle around his waist, he was comfortable and quiet. He looked to be dreaming, a dumb smile on his face and his fingers twitching every so often in his sleep. There was a warmth in Ginko’s chest that was stolen away as his eye fell to Adashino’s temple: it was even easier to see how bright the little blue flower was. 

Something about it made his stomach incredibly tight.

He rolled over and faced the opposite wall, staring into the dark and feeling the disquiet chew at his chest until he fell into sleep.

  
  


#  🌱

“Adashino, why don’t you show _me_ some of _your_ things for a change?” Ginko shoved the last bit of rice into his mouth and set his bowl aside. “I can tell you how many are useless, if you want.”

A slice of pear went sailing by Ginko’s head and onto the porch. “I bet you sold me half the useless things!” Adashino shoved another slice into his mouth and shook his head. “Is this your way of saying you haven’t brought me anything? You treacherous man...”

Ginko let out a huff, leaning back onto his hands. “I never said that.” He smiled despite himself, having brought Adashino absolutely nothing to tinker with or examine, but he was quite sure his friend didn’t actually mind.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the doctor tap his bottom lip thoughtfully, frowning to himself. “I can’t say I have anything new that would interest you, honestly… winter was so slow. I have a few new books, but nothing… _strange._ ”

“Can I see anyway?”

It was Adashino’s turn to question his friend. “What’s gotten into you? Are you the _mushi-d_ _ōshin_ now?” His eyes narrowed, but there was little heat in it. “My collection is just fine, thank you. It’s well-kept, out of reach of those who would misuse any of the objects, filed meticulously…” he lowered his voice. “What other things do you also complain about? I’m free from all that stuff, too. There’s nothing to worry about, Ginko! If you don’t like it, then you can stop bringing me things.” To punctuate himself, he crossed his arms over his chest. 

Ginko just looked at him and raised his eyebrows slowly.

Adashino deflated, tugging at the shoulders of his yukata to straighten them before standing. “Fine… _fine_.” He stretched, and Ginko jumped as he heard the young doctor’s back _crack_ as he pulled his arms over his head. “I’ll let you take a peek-- but I _swear_ I haven’t been messing with anything; I just haven’t had the time.” He flashed Ginko what could only be interpreted as a mischievous smile, teeth showing. “Well, come on now-- you were so impatient, the sun is burning overhead! Hurry up!” He wagged his hands at his friend and then clapped twice-- _chop,chop--_ before taking off towards the back of his home. 

Ginko pushed himself up off the floor and staggered after his friend. He hadn’t expected Adashino to give in so easily, and it caught him off guard… Barefoot, he followed after the doctor towards the back of the house, outside and around to a small cellar door. Adashino already had a key in the padlock by the time Ginko caught up, and within a few moments had the doors tossed open and sunlight spilling down into the storeroom. He padded down the steps with a bounce, and Ginko sighed and followed after with much less enthusiasm. Despite having asked to see it, the mushi-shi wasn’t fond of Adashino’s collection at all, and it made gooseflesh rise along his skin to so much as _think_ about walking through it. 

“Remind me how all this garbage is sorted again,” Ginko asked softly, trailing his fingers along some of the wooden shelves. Most of what was on them was devoid of any kind of mushi presence… the things that _were_ possessed made Ginko cold as he passed them, feeling the foreign energy thrum in a way he knew Adashino would never understand, never properly respect nor fear. His throat was dry at the thought.

It had been several years since he’d known the doctor, and somehow in all that time his passion for collecting curiosities had never once wavered, never once been deterred despite the hundreds of cautions and warnings. If anything, Adashino’s passion had gotten far more intense--misguided as always--and, although Ginko hated to admit it, mildly more interesting.

More than anything, though, it made Ginko worry for his friend. He had said time and time again that Adashino shouldn’t involve himself in things he didn’t understand, nor was able to perceive, and yet the doctor persisted. It was, perhaps, because of what the doctor insisted was _the scientific mind_ : the conquest and pilgrimage towards things that one cannot understand, in the hopes that one day they might be understood. _The natural world is so marvellous, Ginko, I think it’s rather unfair that only some people are allowed to see all of it._ Dangerous or not, Adashino directed himself with all his inquisition towards the _one_ thing Ginko wished he would stay away from, almost with a childlike wonder. And like a child, it was almost doubtless he would be burned by his curiosity.

The thought that one day Adashino would land himself in trouble because of it always chewed away at the back of Ginko’s mind, and he was increasingly worried that that day was much closer than he’d ever imagined before:

It was strange following Adashino through the small maze of shelves, for Ginko was nearly certain it wasn’t a trick of the light that made him see mushi float in Adashino’s wake. They were all harmless, being ones that lived in the soil and loved the dark, but the way they seemed to trail after his friend when they never had before set a strange feeling into Ginko’s chest-- worse still than the worry and _premonition_ that something wasn’t right. He had noticed a few small mushi in the house, but he had figured it was himself that had brought them. But as there was a clearer distance between himself and the doctor, Ginko was beginning to see a troubling pattern emerging. He didn’t _want_ to see it.

Adashino snorted suddenly, startling Ginko from his thoughts. “It’s not _all_ junk down here, you know; some of these things are very precious. Anyway, older things are by the area they’re from, then by date-- date of their origin, not of when I got them,” he added. “But some of the newer things I haven’t sorted yet. Like I said, winter was slow, so there’s not really anything to add…” he turned around in the dark, squinting. He seemed lost for a moment between the shelves. Sometimes Ginko forgot his friend couldn’t see as he could, and that the sunlight trickling down the stairs likely wasn’t much for Adashino to guide himself by. “Ah!” The doctor exclaimed suddenly, “yes, I have most of the newer things over here.” He passed behind a small shelf and waved for Ginko to follow.

He was constantly surprised how large the cellar could feel, all the while being so tiny. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Adashino, so close he could feel his friend’s warmth in the coldness of the storage room, the side of his arm pressed against his own. Ginko frowned down at the shelf Adashino offered to him, surprised to see nothing more than two books, three moth-eaten scrolls, and a small beaded box. None of them seemed to him to be unusual. And yet the doctor stood proud of what he offered, like a child with an interesting bug to show his parents.

“Satisfied, _mushi-dōshin_?” Adashino asked, his lips curling in a tease after only a few seconds of silence between them. He turned his head, and Ginko saw the small flower at his temple again. Somehow, it looked slightly larger than it had before. The mushi-shi blinked and shook his head, turning his eye down to the shelf. Surely he was imagining it.

“Hm,” was all he managed to say. Honestly, he was surprised at the… _bore_ of what was in front of him. Then, after thinking for a moment and wondering if it was even worth it, he tried, “do any of them have interesting stories?”

Adashino looked surprised that Ginko would ask such a question, and turned down to look at the objects. It wasn’t often the mushi-shi was interested in his things with a tone in his voice aside from disappointment or warning. “Well, the books are just books, really. The scrolls are old weather almanacs; I was hoping to compare them to records I have and see how accurate they were. And the…” Adashino paused, and then grinned as he picked up the small box from the shelf. He took half a step back and offered the box to Ginko, turning to face his friend. “Actually, the box is rather interesting. It’s not _really_ haunted or anything, but I thought it was rather pretty. Take a look!”

 _Pretty_ . Ginko rolled his eye, taking the box from Adashino indignantly despite himself. The doctor wouldn’t know the meaning of the word if it hit him square in the head: the box was a mix of wood and obnoxious beadwork, and looked so old that Ginko wondered how it wasn’t rotten. _Pretty_. He wondered if Adashino treated the word the way he treated mushi-- awestruck, but perhaps not truly understanding of any of it.

“It’s a box,” Ginko told him.

“Oh, but it’s a _nice_ box,” Adashino insisted, patting the top with a thin finger. “It plays music when you open it, you know.” He paused, and forcefully rotated the box in Ginko’s hand so that the mushi-shi was looking at the front, where a small brass clasp sat. “Open it, and it will sing a song. Supposedly, the little song was written by a heartbroken woman to the lover who turned her away… I’ll spare you the whole story, but the man who sold it to me said the woman cursed the box so that anyone who heard the song would be filled with the same longing and heartbreak she had had felt…” He sighed. “Isn’t that sad?”

Ginko looked up at his friend, not really caring to humor him.

Adashino looked down at the box, his eyebrows pinching. “Well anyway,” he continued, “the song the box plays is lovely, but I’m quite sure the cursed bit isn’t true at all. I just thought the story was rather tragic and lonely, so I bought the box so it could have a home with some friends here. What do you think of it all?”

Ginko’s eye snapped up to Adashino’s temple, all the blood running from his face. He felt cold, suddenly, looking at his friend and his dark hair, at the hauntingly blue flower perched at his temple. Ginko was certain that if he hadn’t been standing in the near-dark, Adashino would have noticed how he swayed, trying to balance as he felt the ground nearly move beneath him.

“You _listened_ to the box?” He asked quietly.

“Well of course I did!” Adashino answered-- he sounded nearly insulted that Ginko would ask him such a question. If he heard the waver in his friend’s voice, Adashino didn’t mention it. The flower at his temple swayed. “I’m not going to buy a singing box and just let it be silent. That would have been a waste! I told you, Ginko, it’s not haunted or anything, it’s just a story. I’m clearly fine.”

_Clearly fine._

The mushi-shi wasn’t sure why the words made him feel so cold all of a sudden, spoken with such confidence when Adashino clearly-- _clearly--_

His hands shaking suddenly, Ginko opened the clasp on the box and bit down on his tongue. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but he found himself nervous as he peeled the lid back.

It was a _box_.

Ginko’s shoulders sank-- at the bottom of the box he could see a dim dust of light, maybe residual kouki or parts of what had once been a mushi _body_ , but absolutely nothing else besides the small mechanism, roller and music pins inside the box. Whatever had been in the box was gone, and it was…

He looked up at Adashino.

Adashino stared back.

The flower at his temple glowed blue.

A moment passed, and the doctor’s eyebrows drew down slowly. There was a soft concern that was painted on his face. “Ginko, is something the matter?”

Ginko swallowed, looking at the blue flower-- _so blue--_ and not into his friend’s eyes, and closed the lid of the box. His throat felt like sandpaper. Around them in the dark, small mushi floated by; Ginko hardly noticed, as his entire world had narrowed to the small space that lay between him and his friend. His heart had fallen into his stomach, and he wasn’t sure how to put it back into his chest.

“Adashino, I… you should sit down for this.”

#  🌱

“ _Really_? This entire time?” 

Adashino was not sitting, but was, in fact, pacing rapidly from one end of the room to the other. His hands continued to stroke through his messy hair, so very clearly trying to feel the thing that Ginko had described that should be nesting there. But of course he couldn’t see it, and with the stem being so small it just danced around his touch, so Adashino continued in vain to fuss with his hair as he paced.

"Well, it may have been with you longer, I just have no way to know that.” Ginko sighed and leaned back onto one of the beams of the house, pulling his cigarette from between his teeth. “Probably since you listened to that music box, but I can’t say for sure.”

Adashino stopped pacing. “But I don’t _feel_ any different!” He nearly whined as he spoke. “I don’t feel sad, or sick, or even lonely the way the curse is supposed to--”

" _Forget_ about the story, Adashino,” Ginko chided him with a wave of his hand, putting his cigarette back between his teeth. “Whatever has latched onto you is a mushi, not a curse. But it’s also not harmless,” he added. “The story is just a story, but your new friend is very real.”

Adashino resumed pacing at that, continuing to rake his fingers fruitlessly through his hair. “But you don’t know what it is, either... So it might be a good mushi, right?”

Ginko exhaled, and wondered if his friend ever really listened when he talked. “No mushi is either good or bad, they simply _are_.”

Adashino stopped pacing to look at his friend. “What do you mean?”

Ginko shrugged. “You’re that thing’s host, so it’s not doing _nothing._ It’s living and growing, it’s doing what it’s supposed to do.” Again, he wondered if Adashino had really ever listened to him speak before now; maybe he simply chose to ignore what he heard. “I don’t know what it’s _supposed_ to do, and that very well could be something that causes you harm. I think it would be best if we figured out what it was before we do anything-- and sooner rather than later.”

“ _We_?”

Ginko took another breath of his cigarette, perching his elbow leisurely up on one knee. “You’re the one that’s afflicted, Adashino.”

Adashino clapped his hand over his temple, covering the flower he was unable to see. “ _Afflicted?_ Ginko, don’t talk about this little thing like it’s a disease! I’m not _afflicted._ The way you described it, it seems rather lovely, actually.” He paused, perhaps seeing Ginko’s drawn-out expression at his words, the roll of his eye. “How am I supposed to figure anything out about this, Ginko? I can’t see it or feel it.” He dropped his hand off his temple.

Ginko turned his head to the ceiling, closing his eye. “I need you to make a trip with me,” he said slowly. He was choosing his words carefully, afraid of sounding too urgent, of mirroring the beat of his heart on his lips. “I’ve never seen this mushi before, but it seems to lure in others towards it… as time goes on, it will likely only worsen. It could become dangerous. It might bring about something... unsightly.”

He could almost hear Adashino swatting around his own head, as though trying to touch or catch the other creatures Ginko spoke of. But when he opened his eye, Adashino was simply standing in front of him, looking down at him with a perplexed frown. 

“You want me to travel with you?”

Ginko nodded. He didn’t see a better solution, at least not in that moment-- if Adashino stayed around his home for too long, or even in the village, mushi far worse than the little flower would begin to nest. He would have to keep moving, and so it made sense he may as well tag along with Ginko. “There’s an archivist not far from here-- I was thinking we could make our way there.” He tried to picture Adashino trekking along behind him, and though he was the one that had proposed the idea, it still seemed so strange. He couldn’t tell if he was comforted by the idea of having his friend with him, or worried. “There’s a library with records of many different mushi. That one,” he pointed with his cigarette straight at Adashino, “is probably catalogued there. Normally I would go alone, or send a letter, but... “

“Two ends by one means,” the doctor finished, understanding exactly the reasons that had brought Ginko to this proposal. So maybe he _did_ listen. Adashino seemed breathless, but Ginko had no idea why that would be.

“Well?” Ginko asked, straightening himself out where he sat. He put the last of his cigarette back in his mouth and nodded back up at his friend. He catalogued the lines of Adashino’s face, and found himself unable to read exactly what his friend was feeling. He couldn’t tell if he was worried, angry, or even excited. The thought made him nervous, the sudden wall that Adashino had put up, but he didn’t mention it. Instead, Ginko said: “What do you think?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🌱 the doshin were a sort of Edo-period law enforcement  
> ("what are you, a narc?" - Adashino, probably)
> 
> Also yes hello hello thank you for reading this first chapter! Thank you for reading! As well, since I am my own beta, if you notice a typo or mistake please let me know by [sending me a message on Tumblr ](http://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com). (Dont care what year it is I've been on that hellsite since 2008 I'm gonna be there til I die)  
> I also love to chat so please talk to me. Abt Mushishi or about whether or not a pita is a sandwich or a type of dumpling. Up to you.


	2. Company of Thought

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "My heart is ever at your service.” - William Shakespeare
> 
> -
> 
> In which our favourite stupid doctor considers some things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is far shorter than the first chapter, but I think it does an alright job of introducing my interpretation of Adashino.  
> 

It had been a long time that he’d known Ginko, and yet in all of his dreams involving his strange friend, Adashino had never imagined anything quite like this.

His feet ached. He hated it.

But his heart felt so terribly full, so incredibly warm.

It was hard to describe. 

Ginko walked with such a certainty, such a gentle confidence to each one of his steps that Adashino could only stare at the wake of his footprints and wonder exactly how that was. They’d been walking for hours and yet Ginko did not slow down, his shoulders didn’t droop, and he didn’t once sway from the barely-there path that they followed up into the mountains. His feet didn’t stagger or stumble. All the doctor could do was scramble to keep pace.

Adashino had travelled before, certainly, but this was altogether something else. 

He thought back to three days earlier, when Ginko had shown up without a word at his house. It was almost always like that-- a quick, _Hey_ , and then they picked up where they had left off before. Weeks would go by that he’d not hear a word from the mushi-shi-- sometimes, like this time, months and entire seasons would pass by in silence. But each time, it was like picking up a new thread for a loom: it wrapped so tightly and properly into the rest of the piece, it was as though the stitch was never dropped in the first place.

But this had seemed different to Adashino, and not solely because he was trapaising through the mountains behind some strange, handsome man-- although that had a large part to do with it, he if he were honest. It was more the way it had all started, as though their _usual_ had been taken and shifted slightly to the left, a few moments out of place and out of time-- it sat strange in Adashino’s head when he thought about it. 

When he’d first noticed Ginko staring, half of him had wondered if the man had hit his head. The other half was convinced _he_ had hit his head, or at the least he’d left some sort of ink stain upon his face. No matter how he’d puttered around, tidying up and muttering to himself, he felt a redness creep into his face as he had begun to realise how Ginko’s eye had followed him around the room. 

That had been new.

Not that the sudden _openness_ vexed Adashino, per se, but more that he was… surprised. It had caught him completely off guard.

Some called the mushi-shi distant, some said he was aloof, but Adashino had come to learn that he was simply very gentle at heart and saved his words for when they mattered most. His expressions spoke volumes, but even the doctor was still learning the language Ginko spoke in silence-- one thing he _did_ know, though, was that the mushi-shi hardly ever stared the way he had that day at Adashino.

But of _course_ it hadn’t been anything different or new-- at least, not anything different or new for Ginko. As it all turned out, Adashino had been wearing a mushi in his hair, and that was really all there had been to it.

The doctor told himself he should be excited for whatever this was to bring, but for whatever reason it all made him terribly sad instead. 

There was a young, foolish part of his heart that longed for adventure, that sought after the extraordinary and the bizarre, and that part of himself he could never fully shed-- nor did he want to. But there was another part of him he’d nearly forgotten about that had, just for a moment, risen to remind him of a long-discarded wish. And it continued to needle at him as he walked, staring at the back of Ginko’s head.

For half a moment he’d made the mistake of thinking his wish was returned, and that mistake made Adashino feel sick. 

He ought to feel excited that he’d been possessed by something outlandish, something mystical and bizarre, like something out of one of his wildest dreams. He’d always wanted to be a part of the world that Ginko talked about, hanging there just out of reach, but… 

Adashino sighed to himself, swallowing down a pit in his throat.

When the worry that Ginko tried so hard to hide had become plain on his face, that was the moment Adashino wished he could take all of it back. He would do anything to keep Ginko from looking at him like that again.

Adashino turned the stupid little music box over in his hands and sighed, finding himself wishing he could go back and undo whatever it was he’d done without knowing. He wished as well he could rewind even further, back to when they’d first met, and tell himself not to be so stupid about any of this.

It had been dark and raining, the waves crashing hard against the coast and the downpour hammering against the rooves of the village, so loud that no other sound seemed to fill his ears. It wasn’t until several long seconds had passed that Adashino had realised someone was shouting for him outside, pounding on the frame of the house. 

“ _There’s a traveller, doctor! He’s hurt, please hurry!_ ” 

He couldn’t be sure if his interest in mushi had come _from_ Ginko, or if Ginko continued to return to his life _because_ of his newfound interest in mushi. To Adashino, the two seemed irreconcilably entwined in one another, and the more he thought about which came first, the more he wasn’t sure could see a beginning or an end to either. 

He could remember carding his fingers through Ginko’s hair--at that time, the mushi-shi had been nameless to him--on the very first day he’d ever seen the man, and prying bits of mud and leaves free from the tangle. _So soft,_ he’d thought innocently. _He has such a gentle face. I wonder who he is._

Sometimes when Adashino was alone and so terribly, terribly lonely, he brought himself back to that moment just to stretch it out in his heart. To look at his friend lumped under blankets and cast in the light of a soft fire, his face free from anything besides calm. To feel himself reach out without worry, to drag a finger down the line of Ginko’s jaw and frown about how, _somehow_ , there was still a bit of mud stuck there. The mushi-shi had broken three ribs and an arm after having fallen down a cliff, and at the time he had been nothing more than a patient to the young doctor. Adashino hadn’t known it, but it had been one of the first and the last times he’d been able to touch so freely.

 _You fool,_ Adashino chided himself, _you should have just pried your eyes out, maybe cut your fingers off._ He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm, suddenly finding himself wanting to cry at the memory. _You should have sent him on his way without a word._ How simple it had seemed at the time.

Things had continued to be simple for a while, until suddenly they weren’t. 

He’d never tell of what had grown in his ribs, he swore he’d never let a word of it pass his lips while he was alive.

“Adashino?”

The doctor nearly walked into the other man, startled by how suddenly he’d stopped. He held a yelp between his teeth fumbled stupidly with the music box in his fingers, nearly dropping it to the ground. Once his heart stilled, he looked up: they were on a plateau, overlooking the ocean to one side and the rest of the mountain trail to the other. Somehow, through all of his thought, he’d completely missed the end of the forest and the levelling of the path.

“Are you--” Ginko stopped suddenly, and Adashino found that strange look on his friend’s face once more. His stomach churned.

“What?”

Before he could react, Ginko’s fingers were at his temple. Adashino’s heart lurched with something terrible, and he fought to keep his face straight. “There are two of them,” the mushi-shi said softly, and then dropped his touch to his side. He frowned. “Do you feel any different since this morning?”

Adashino eye’s suddenly found Ginko’s kneecaps incredibly interesting, and found himself unable to look up and meet his friend’s stare. “Not really,” he lied. He clutched the box tighter in his fingers.

His thoughts had been racing all day, from one thing to another, and it was terribly hard to say exactly what _different_ was supposed to mean. He couldn’t put how he felt into words, and certainly not any that he could guarantee were because of the little flowers allegedly sprouting out of his temple. 

The only constant was that his heart had been in his throat since they’d left the village, and he couldn’t quite figure out how to put it back in his chest.

“I see,” Ginko said, and the softness of it seemed like a kind of relief that let Adashino look up at his friend at last. “That’s good, at least.”

Adashino briefly followed the line of Ginko’s stare, out to across the ocean, and wondered what it was he was thinking about. He seemed distracted, and as Adashino turned back to him, he catalogued his friend’s expression into what he could only think was something bittersweet. He had a cigarette between his downturned lips-- _stop looking--_ and a gentle crease at the corner of his green, green eye-- _stop looking._ It made Adashino ache something wicked, and once again the doctor looked down and away. _Stop looking._

“How far is this library?” Adashino asked. 

Ginko shrugged. “A week from here, maybe.” He took the cigarette out of his mouth, and Adashino let his eyes follow the lines of his friend’s fingers. “I’ve told you about Tanyuu before, haven’t I?”

 _Yes,_ the doctor thought to himself. He remembered a knot of jealousy that had lingered in his stomach at the time. “A little,” he said out loud. “She’s the one with the mushi trapped in her leg, right?”

“Hm,” Ginko agreed, turning back to his friend. “I imagine at least one of her scrolls would know something about… this,” he tilted his chin at Adashino.

The doctor felt himself blushing involuntarily. “This,” he mouthed back.

Ginko shrugged, his pack shifting on his shoulders. “I can hope,” he sighed. His eye met Adashino’s, and something passed behind his stare that the doctor couldn’t quite read. “Let’s get going, before the weather turns.”

Adashino furrowed his eyebrows and looked up at the sky: not a stormcloud in sight. _What a weird thing to say,_ he thought, but he followed after Ginko without mentioning it.

His friend had a lot of strange habits, but none were more perplexing than how his stare said one thing, and his lips said another. Adashino wished only that he might learn to understand.


	3. Curious or Clever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.” ― Alfred Tennyson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I was following any kind of cannon timeline, this is the only place it diverges.  
> Ginko has already met Tanyuu, but has not yet made his promise to her as this fic takes place before the start of the series.

  
  


By the time they arrive at the archivist’s, Adashino is wearing a small circlet of flowers on his head.

He has absolutely no idea what to do about it, except pretend to be absolutely elated instead of mortified and, of course, ask Ginko how it makes him look.

“You look like an idiot,” the mushi-shi tells him, but there’s no cruelty in the tone. Adashino might almost believe his words to be fond. “If you could see yourself, you might agree with me.”

There was something in the crook of Ginko’s half-smile that made Adashino’s chest warm.

But when the knocking on the door of the archivist was answered, all the feeling had drained from the doctor’s limbs.

“Hey,” Ginko greeted the woman who opened the door. There was a fondness in his voice that Adashino knew was reserved for only some people, and the doctor felt jealousy twist his stomach as he noticed it. He swallowed it down and schooled his face into neutrality-- he had absolutely no right to feel that way.

Tanyuu was young, barely into her twenties― much younger than Adashino had ever imagined her, if he were honest with himself. Her dark hair was loose, neatly trimmed and falling barely to the point of her chin. Her eyes held something in them that made them seem older than the rest of her.

The doctor offered a smile to the scribe and bowed ever so slightly. “Nice to meet you. I’m Adashino.”

The young woman gave him a nod of her head, bowing to the best of her ability on her crutches. “Nice to meet you,” she echoed. “I’m Tanyuu.” Her fingers tightened around her crutch-grips almost imperceptibly.

Adashino frowned at her crutches as he noticed the movement, suddenly taken by how uncomfortable they must be. They were far too short for her, and the hand-grip was tilted awkwardly. It looked cumbersome.

Realising she must think he was judging her for some reason or another, Adashino quickly wiped the frown off his face and swallowed down his thoughts. “Thank you for having us,” he said, “I hope this isn’t too much of a bother to house a stranger.”

Tanyuu smiled at him― it was gentle, warm, and lit her face up ever so softly. If she had been offended by his staring, she didn’t mention it. “You’re not a stranger, really. Ginko talks about you sometimes; honestly, it’s nice to finally have you here in person.”

Heat was creeping onto Adashino’s face, but when he turned to scowl at Ginko, the other man only shrugged back. 

Somehow, he figured most of the things Ginko likely would have mentioned were not terribly kind nor flattering. Adashino was mostly known in mushi-shi circles for his eccentricities, and it would be terribly unlike Ginko to correct the stories if they went astray.

 _How awkward,_ Adashino thought. For once he was not pleased his reputation preceded him.

“He tells me you collect things,” Tanyuu said softly, and Adashino turned back to her as she spoke. His face was hot. “Mostly useless things, is what he said, although I wouldn’t know.” Her face was teasing, but more at Ginko than at Adashino.

“ _Trinkets_ ,” Ginko corrected her, pulling his cigarette out of his mouth and dropping it to the earth. He ground it out with the heel of his shoe. “He doesn’t know either,” he added under his breath.

Adashino looked away, feeling the humiliation in his face and trying desperately to make it go away. The objects he collected were curiosities to him, and they were part of a world he could never know― he cherished his collections deeply because of that. They represented something in the gap he could never cross. He found the objects and stories charming, but yet suddenly under the gaze of Tanyuu and Ginko both, the doctor felt ashamed of his habit.

 _It’s a box_. 

Adashino could remember very clearly the flat look on Ginko’s face days earlier. Maybe he would never understand what it was like to be so absolutely taken in by something that was just beyond his reach― and maybe that wasn’t his fault. Something in that hurt deeply to think about.

“Is it one of the trinkets that’s brought you here? You should know better, Ginko.” 

Adashino and Ginko both jumped at the new voice, coming from further down the main hall of the house. It belonged to an older woman, hair knotted in a loose bun over a severe face. She gave Adashino chills, and the doctor wanted to step back and hide behind Ginko despite, quite obviously, being a full-grown man and perfectly capable of realising it was nonsense to be afraid of an old woman. He straightened his shoulders and met her eyes.

“Hello,” he tried, forcing himself to bow his head to her. “I’m Adashino.”

“I know,” she replied, clipped. The woman came to stand beside Tanyuu, placing a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “I read Ginko’s letter.”

At this, Adashino could only pinch his eyebrows and nod silently, pursing his lips. He hadn’t a clue what Ginko had written in the letter he had sent ahead, but whatever it was it seemed to make this old woman hate him without saying so aloud.

“Tama, please treat Adashino kindly. He’s a friend of Ginko’s,” Tanyuu told her. “Adashino, this is Minai Tama, my family’s current mushi-shi.” She waved a hand as she looked back at Adashino, balancing her crutch against a hip, and smiled. “Please treat her kindly as well.”

Adashino nodded at Tanyuu, while the older woman―Tama―merely frowned deeper, turning her eyes back to Ginko. “You have stories with you, at least?”

Ginko smiled, seemingly unphased by the way the older mushi-shi was staring daggers at him. How nice it would be to be so nonchalant, Adashino thought. “Of course I do. I wouldn’t dare visit otherwise,” Ginko said. 

Tama nodded, seemingly satisfied with is answer, and turned away, walking down the hall and back into the house.

 _She’s scary_ , Adashino thought, chewing at his lip.

“She’s protective,” Tanyuu said, probably reading the grimace Adashino hadn’t bothered to hide. “Don’t worry about it. We rarely have visitors who aren’t mushi-shi, it’s not anything personal.”

“Of course,” Adashino answered, but he wasn’t sure if he believed either Tanyuu nor himself. _She probably thinks I’ll pry around._

If the old woman hadn’t looked like she’d cut him up if he so much as thought about it, Adashino figured she was probably right. A whole _library_ of things he could hardly imagine, right below his feet...

He followed her and Ginko into the house, kicking off his sandals and relishing the cold wood beneath his sore feet. He’d often mocked Ginko for wearing his bizarre, western shoes around, but after days of walking on nothing but woven sandals… Adashino would never admit it, but he wanted a solid sole under his feet too. 

There was an area Tanyuu led them to, off the main hall, that seemed to be set up like a tearoom. She ushered them in and asked them to sit, offering the pair of them hot tea that had already been set out on a small table. Tama was nowhere to be found, but Adashino figured it was probably her who had set everything up. 

Watching the two settle into what Adashino could only take for _routine_ , the doctor picked up a cup of tea and settled himself across from the pair. Ginko had mentioned offhand what he did when he visited Tanyuu, but it was still bizarre to see it in person: his veil and distance dropped quickly around Tanyuu. He was clearly very comfortable around her.

Ginko began speaking slowly, telling to the young scribe stories of mushi and sending them away. Of _killing_ them, if one were frank. Adashino found these stories a little unsettling, but mostly because he knew it was out of Ginko’s character to be talking of things like that. But if Adashino had understood what Ginko had explained to him, the mushi that immobilized Tanyuu’s leg could only be cast out by hearing of, and by having Tanyuu transcribe, the deaths of those like it. And so Ginko started with those stories first, pausing every so often to take a drink of tea to clear his throat before going on. 

Adashino was entirely enraptured in the stories by the time Ginko moved on and began telling Tanyuu of more interesting things: how the harmony between people and mushi could be understood, how he taught others and learned himself how to co-exist with these balances. There was such a light on his face, such an ease, that Adashino could only fall deeper into it the lore he spoke of, the more he listened. How desperately he wanted to know more of it.

Tama entered the room after a few hours, carrying plates of fried fish, some vegetables and rise, and a simple soup. Adashino realised suddenly just how hungry he was, and how long he’d gone without eating― what time was it, anyway? It was probably growing late. 

“The library is free, whenever you’re ready,” Tama mumbled, but her eyes had softened since earlier. “Tanyuu, you should eat before you scribe anything,” she added. 

In that moment, the old woman looked only half as scary, and Adashino managed to nod in thanks at her as she passed. She placed the last plate of food down and retreated from the room without indication of whether or not she saw.

Ginko only took a small bite of the fish and then stood, stretching until his knees cracked. Adashino and Tanyuu both jumped at the sound, but relaxed when Ginko smiled down at them. “I’ll be back in a bit. I’d rather look sooner than later― get an early start. Stay out of trouble,” he added, disappearing into the next room after the older mushi-shi. 

Adashino frowned at the space Ginko had stood in moments before. “Stay out of trouble?” He scowled and took another bite of rice, chewing angrily. “What does he think, that I did this on purpose? Stupid idiot.”

“I’m sure he means nothing by it,” Tanyuu offered, and Adashino turned to her upon remembering he was not in the room alone. “The flowers are flattering, anyway. I wouldn’t quite call it _trouble_ just yet.”

Mindlessly, Adashino reached up to try to touch the invisible crown of blossoms on his head. As always, his fingers touched only his hair. _Flattering_ , he thought, and not without a certain embarrassment rising to his ears. “You can see them too?” 

Tanyuu nodded, sticking her chopsticks into the bowl of vegetables she held and plucking a piece of eggplant from it. “It would be strange to have a mushi living in my body, and not be able to see its kin, no?”

Adashino considered this for a moment. “I suppose so.” His eyes fell down to his rice bowl, not quite able to find words. He wanted to tell her suddenly how envious he was, that she was part of this magical world he could never walk through. But he felt very childlike for feeling that way, so he kept his words to himself.

“Adashino...” Tanyuu’s voice, hesitant and slow, made him jump. “I’m sorry, you seem so kind, and it’s not often I have someone by who…” she set her chopsticks down, and Adashino looked over at her. The young woman tucked a curl of hair behind her ear, but despite opening her face she looked down at what remained of her supper, avoiding his eyes. “Would you mind carrying me outside after we finish eating? I’d like to go for a walk.” 

Adashino relaxed at her question, tension he hadn’t realised he’d been holding fleeing from his shoulders at her question. He wasn’t sure what he had been afraid of. “Of course, just tell me where.” 

Tanyuu was very light, clinging to his back like many of the children Adashino had carted around his village. It wasn’t difficult to carry her, nor was it humiliating in his mind, and he expressed it more than once as they made their way outside the house just to make sure Tanyuu understood. She continued apologising anyway.

“Although, if you don’t mind me saying, it might be easier for you to walk around if your crutches fit you right.” He frowned ahead down the path he carried her own, wondering how he could phrase it so as best not to offend her― she had already said _sorry_ to him at least half a dozen times. “Walking won’t ever be easy, but your crutches being mis-fit certainly doesn’t help. You’ve probably had yours for a long time, you’ve grown and they haven’t been adjusted: they’re too short, and the angle for the hand-grips isn’t aligned right.”

The young woman made a sound of surprise, her chin leaning onto the top of his head. “You noticed that?” She took a deep breath. “Ginko mentioned to me that you’re a doctor... is that true?

Adashino wanted to nod, but having Tanyuu’s chin against the crown of his head made that quite impossible. “Yes, it’s true,” he said simply.

She sighed, readjusting so that he felt her cheek against his head instead of her chin. “You must be very clever, then.”

Adashino had to laugh― if he were clever, he wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. He voiced as much, albeit gently. If he were clever, he would have stayed away from things that weren’t his business. If he were clever, he would have listened to Ginko.

“You’re curious, too, though,” Tanyuu answered. “And being curious sometimes defeats being clever. Don’t feel bad about it― this was perhaps even meant to happen. Curiosity is better, anyway, if you had to have only one of the two.”

Adashino shrugged, but the movement was hindered by the fact that Tanyuu clung on to him in the way she did. Her answer put him a bit at ease, even though he would be slow to admit it. They made their way along a large loop, silent as the sun sank lower in the sky before them.

There was something so terribly peaceful about this place, Adashino thought, and he wondered for a moment where he might be if not here. Where he would _want_ to be. Maybe the scribe was right, and the place he ought to be was exactly where he was right then. Something in that thought made his heart warm, even though he was still embarrassed he’d landed in this mess and had to be rescued from it.

“What is your home like?” Tanyuu asked suddenly, sitting up straighter as Adashino shifted to compensate. “Do you have anyone back home― is there someone waiting for you? I never hear about stories like that. If you don’t mind,” she added quickly. “All the mushi-shi who come here only talk of their work, and I never hear stories about their family. I miss my own a lot, sometimes. It’s always just me and Tama now.”

Adashino hated to shake his head at her curiosity, but he managed to do so as he answered. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t quite have the story you’re looking for― my patients and my neighbours are like my family, but that’s probably not what you wanted to hear.” He sighed. For the first time in a while, he felt disappointed. “My parents passed away some years ago, as well, right after I finished my apprenticeship. I live alone right now.”

“Really?” Tanyuu sounded incredibly surprised. “No wife? No children?”

Adashino felt his stomach tighten, and involuntarily he tripped over a bit of the uneven path as his focus was stolen. He recovered, huffing, and cleared his throat of the lump that had made its way up there. For a moment, the road before him seemed to sway. “That’s not all there is to a life,” he said.

“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant!” Tanyuu placed both her hands on his shoulders, pressing her fingers into his yukata and down into the tension that lay beneath. She spoke quickly, softly, with a sudden urgence. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound rude…really, it’s just that I thought you would be married, being older than I am and, well... You’re clever, you seem very kind, and handsome… not to mention, if you’re a doctor you have no worry about money or status, I mean...” She cleared her throat and shifted on his back, suddenly awkward. “I didn’t mean to pry, I’m sorry.”

Adashino would never say how her words put his heart into his throat. He closed his eyes for a minute and stopped walking. He’d often asked himself the same questions she was speaking aloud, but more often than not he had chosen to turn away from his own answers. The way Tanyuu asked was naive, and that naivety brought with it a certain forwardness Adashino could not ignore the way he could when he was alone. 

“It’s alright,” he told her, “my family was never one for arranged marriage, and I’m distracted by other pursuits besides. I have a lot of things to keep me busy. I’m not lonely.” He wasn’t sure if he was lying or not, and the thought made him uncomfortable.

Tanyuu nodded against his head, her cheek warm in his hair, and Adashino resumed walking. He could feel her smile against his head. “As long as you’re alright with it, then there’s no reason to be sad.” There was a veiled question under her words, and how thin they were; it was a question that Adashino hated to consider. But instead of pressing, Tanyuu moved on: “Now, you said my crutches were too small for me… would you mind telling me what they _should_ look like?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> raise your hand if you find Tama Minai scary ( ⚆ _ ⚆ )


	4. The Greatest Punishment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” ― Federico García Lorca

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part was originally a part of Chapter 3, so... ~double update~  
> I took a look at the finished chapter originally and found it far too long, so I split it in two

Many days went by before any headway was made of any kind, and more often than not Adashino found himself sitting with Tanyuu while Ginko disappeared into the Karibusa family library for hours at a time. (Adashino was not allowed down with him, and with the scary old lady guarding the door his protests died in his throat).

The doctor actually found that despite his initial jealousy of her, he rather liked Tanyuu and realised exactly why it was Ginko kept visiting her― archives or no archives. She was extremely bright, very observant, and―much to Adashino’s surprise―a very good _Go_ player. He’d hardly ever lost a game to anyone, but after over two dozen matches and rematches with the scribe, he’d lost to her no less than nine times. That was more than he’d ever lost before, combined. It was incredibly impressive, to say the least. 

She also let him in on small secrets, but usually when Tama wasn’t looking-- if the older woman thought Adashino was looking to long, asking too many questions, she was in the room and dragging him outside to hang up the linens, or to scrub the dishes, or collect firewood. Adashino began to learn the value of restraint for perhaps the first time in his life. But between those moments, he was shown more of Ginko’s world than he ever had before, all held between ink and paper.

In the evenings, while Ginko smoked out on the porch and Tanyuu rested, Adashino had worked on sketching out a new design for her crutches. The first night was the farthest thing from a success imaginable―he’d had far too much sake for anything to make sense―but after a few more evenings and late nights, he was convinced that his design was as refined as it was going to get without actually having the crutches built to test.

Trying to hide how smug he felt, Adashino watched as Ginko reviewed the design with an impressed look on his face one quiet evening. He wasn’t sure if it was the sake he’d had earlier to drown his nerves, or just an overwhelming feeling of fondness, but his cheeks were so very red as he watched Ginko look over his sketches.

“Has she seen this?”

Adashino shook his head, smiling to himself. He rather wanted it to be a surprise, even though she’d asked him for the favour directly. “I was hoping to show her in the morning, and see what she thinks.”

Ginko huffed, rolling the length of paper and passing it back to Adashino. “Your brilliance surprises me sometimes, you know.” He picked up the cigarette he had set aside and put it back in his mouth, drawing a deep breath of smoke. “You have a real mind inside that skull, Adashino.”

“I’ll have you know I’m brilliant at _regular_ intervals,” Adashino interjected, tucking the scroll back under his arm. “You’re just unlucky enough to only know me for my mistakes. I can be clever if I try.”

“And yet here we are,” Ginko said. He spoke flatly, but there was a curl to his lips as he looked off across the porch, almost a smile.

For half a moment, Adashino was glad the sake had made his face red, if only to hide his blush. “I _told you_ : I liked the box, it was pretty, I didn’t think anything was in it― I really don’t know what you want from me.” He sighed. “Really, it would be easier if I could _see_ things the way you could.”

Ginko turned back to him, raising an eyebrow. “It would be easier if you just kept your eyes glued to things you know.”

“But that’s so _boring_ ,” the doctor protested. He sat down beside Ginko, setting his scroll off to the side and letting his feet hang off the edge of the porch. For a moment his balance wobbled as the alcohol he’d had earlier came back to greet him. “It’s so boring to be satisfied with the boundaries of what we are already familiar with. How plain would life be if we never looked for anything larger than that?”

Ginko shook his head and looked out towards the edge of the sky. “You sound like a hopeless romantic when you say it like that.”

“Well, maybe I _am_ ,” he answered, tilting his head. Without thinking about it, he smiled at his friend. He felt so warm, sitting in the last edges of the sun, sake still stuck to his tongue. “I’m a scholar of medicine _and_ literature, and maybe other things too. You wouldn’t know, Ginko. You hardly know a thing about me, mushi-shi.”

“Don’t I?” Ginko looked at him sideways, and Adashino grinned stupidly back. “I know you snore if you sleep on your side― but not on your back. Who else knows that?”

Adashino covered his mouth as he found himself nearly giggling. He snored? How absurd. He wanted to be mortified, but found he was a bit too tipsy to care. “Do I _really_?”

Ginko huffed, stubbing out his cigarette on the porch. “You also favour your right eye. You should get that looked at. Maybe when you sober up a bit,” he added, smiling to himself, gaze fixed on where he pressed his cigarette into a stone tray sitting on the porch.

Adashino bit down another laugh, suddenly very warm despite the cool evening air. Rather than a laugh, the sound that left his mouth sounded more like a hiccup than anything else. He found he didn’t care if it was embarrassing. “Have you been looking at me, Ginko?” The thought made him teeter on the edge of giddy. He hadn’t even realised the habit Ginko was talking about, and the detail felt slightly more intimate than it should have.

“Not really― you’re a boring sight.” There was a tease in his voice, one that told Adashino he didn’t really mean what he said. “The flowers are certainly an improvement, anyway.”

"And yet you still say I look like an idiot in them." Adashino let himself laugh at that, too, considering for a moment that Ginko was only looking because of the little blue flowers on his head. The doctor shook his head at that, the motion making him so dizzy he had to lie completely back on the porch. He was overcome by the desire to reach out and touch the other man, but he held himself back and put his fingers over his face. He grinned through his hands. “You’re so mean to me, Ginko,” he mumbled. 

He heard Ginko stand. “Come on,” the mushi-shi told him quietly. Adashino felt one of Ginko’s feet against his side, gently prodding. “The sun’s getting low, it’s nearly time to sleep.”

“On my back,” Adashino giggled.

“Yeah.” There was a fondness in the single word, one that made Adashino’s chest bubble with a warmth he wanted desperately to stop denying to himself. 

#  🌱

It was mid-afternoon the next day when Ginko slid the screen door open with a slam, startling Adashino into nearly tipping the _Go_ board over as he jumped. Both he and Tanyuu turned to see the white-haired mushi-shi standing in the doorway, a bright look in his eye. 

“I think we’ve found it,” was all he said, before leaving the other two to scramble after him.

Adashino pushed the _Go_ board aside gently and scooped Tanyuu up in his arms (much to her protests, as she reached for her old crutches fruitlessly) to follow. Eventually the young woman simply crossed her arms and scowled, seemingly resigning herself to being carried through the house in Ginko’s wake. 

When they reached their destination, Tama was sitting on her legs with a scroll rolled out before her; Ginko was beginning to settle himself on the floor beside the writing. Adashino placed Tanyuu on the ground across from the mushi-shis, and sat himself beside her. He couldn’t deny to himself he was both nervous and excited for whatever it was they had to present.

“Well?”

He could read upside-down, as well as backwards, but the doctor held his eyes off the page and focussed on the collar of Ginko’s shirt instead. 

“I think it’s a _Kokoro no Hana_ ,” he announced. “There were many other similar mushi, but I’m fairly certain that this is what it is.”

Adashino swallowed, tension rising in his throat. His mouth was suddenly very dry. “ _Kokoro… no Hana_ ,” he repeated. _Heart-Blossoms_. A thin, cold sweat began to cling to the back of his neck.

“It’s a mushi that only feeds from people, and _only_ people,” Tama said, and Adashino snapped his head over to the older woman as she spoke. He was grateful to have a reason to look away from Ginko. Suddenly he felt very hot. “It eats emotions― very strong ones.” There was a knowing smile to her weathered face.

“Oh… I see.” Adashino swallowed, but a strange lump stuck in his throat. “Is it…” _Bad_ was the wrong word. _No mushi is either good or bad, they simply are._ “Is it going to make me sick... eventually? How do I get rid of it?”

“Just hold on,” Ginko told him. He waved one of his hands, and then pointed down at the scroll. Adashino followed with his eyes to the script he tapped. “Thankfully there aren’t side-effects recorded here, aside from the ones that I noticed before: it attracts other mushi. So travelling while affected is a treatment that’s normally recommended.” He paused, and Adashino finally collected the courage to meet Ginko’s stare. His friend’s face was a mask unreadable. “It feeds off of very specific emotions, meaning that you can starve it off ridding yourself of those feelings.”

Both Tanyuu and Adashino tilted their heads. 

“What feelings are those?” The young woman voiced the words Adashino was afraid to say. It was strange, because Tanyuu spoke as though she already knew the answer to the question she asked.

Adashino was almost certain that, simply because of the mushi’s name, he knew _exactly_ what sort of feelings it ate. The thought made him dizzy. He considered dimly about how his crown had started as one flower, how it had been one flower for what was likely months. He’d opened the music box near the winter solstice, and they were halfway through spring when Ginko had arrived to notice it. Three days later, it had become two flowers. Adashino thought of how he’d seen more of his friend in the last ten days than he ever had in the years they’d known each other― and how suddenly, during that time, his single flower had become a bouquet.

He already knew what the mushi did.

Ginko offered a gentle smile to Adashino, as though he didn’t see how the doctor’s hands were shaking on his lap. The smile soon faded as he looked back down at the scroll. “The way it’s written here, it seems the mushi eats feelings of affection,” Ginko said. His voice was so terribly neutral. “But more than that,” he continued, “it seems to be especially drawn to love that’s unrequited. It fills the gap, so-to-speak, that is present in the host’s heart.”

Adashino felt all the blood drain out of his face, and the room seemed to spin around him. He didn’t know where to look― nothing was in focus. He sat motionless and let the world rotate around him, helpless as he began to drown in his own mortification. Adashino wanted only to dissolve into the floor.

He felt Tanyuu elbow him, and he jumped as he was pried away from himself. “I think it’s rather cute.” She grinned. “Adashino, you never told me you were a secret romantic. Ginko always talks about you like you’re some kind of womanizer.” She was smiling far too broadly.

Adashino’s mouth was so terribly dry, he could not answer her. His heart was ringing in his ears. He very suddenly hated the flowers he couldn’t see, and he hated them with an anger he hadn’t thought he’d ever be able to feel. He ground his teeth together. Hoarse, he asked, “how do I get rid of them?”

Ginko nodded. If he saw the way Adashino had broken into a sweat, or the way in which he refused to meet Ginko’s eye, the mushi-shi said nothing of it. “There are two ways. Both essentially involve starving it, so that the _Kokoro no Hana_ would then have nothing to feed on and leave. One way to starve it is to forget the person causing the feeling.” His voice had become very low, very soft. His words hardly carried. “To _move on_ , if you will. The other way, which might be more difficult, is to have the person return your feelings, so that they are no longer unrequited. That would remove the hole the mushi sits in.”

Adashino opened his mouth to speak, to say something― to say _anything_ ― but for the first time in probably his whole entire life, the man was at a total loss for words.

He repeated Ginko’s words over again in his head, trying to make sense of it all.

He opened his mouth a second time, but no sound came out. He closed it, his throat so terribly tight, and frowned.

“It’s okay if you need a minute,” Ginko said gently. “Just think about it.”

Adashino’s voice came back to him slowly, his mind returning to life in a slow thaw. “That’s the _opposite_ of what you said I need to do; actually, this is completely stupid.” He looked to Tama, and then back at Ginko. “Isn’t there another way? This is ridiculous, Ginko, I can’t do that! Surely you understand, don’t you? I _won’t_ do that.” His fingers curled into his lap. Under his breath, “it’s not even possible.”

Ginko didn’t answer him. He only closed his eye and shook his head.

Something in Adashino’s chest cracked.

Before he could stop himself, the doctor was standing and crossing the room, his ears filling with the rushing of blood. The world around him was muted, except for the hammer of his heart against his ribs; though he was certain he could hear someone calling after him, he didn’t turn and look over his shoulder.

He wanted nothing more than to run.

He felt like he was falling, and there was nothing waiting to catch him. All he could do was run and hope the ground met his feet with each step.

He jumped off the porch without putting his sandals on, and staggered down the dirt path at the front of the building until his feet ached. He wasn’t sure how far he went. He stumbled until a sharp rock cut into his foot and he began to bleed― at which point he simply sat down in a heap in the middle of the road. He wanted to run, he wanted to leave this place, he even wanted to dissolve into the dirt, but more than anything else he simply wanted to sleep and never have to wake. 

How foolish he was, allowing himself to feel.

And how foolish he was for not wanting to let that feeling go.

For the first time in well over a week, Adashino wished desperately he had stayed in his village, that he had never come along. Maybe, even, that he had never met Ginko at all.

But he felt so happy to know Ginko, he could not imagine what he would be without him. There was an irreplaceable softness in his heart. How lovely it was to care so deeply about another person, Adashino thought, that he would wish for nothing more in the world but that. He didn’t need anything in return, it had always been enough to be near the other man, to be by his side. There was no _hole_ in his heart to fill-- Ginko was so terribly wrong. Whatever the mushi was eating, it wasn’t sorrow, it wasn’t loss or absence. It was quite the opposite, and the thought of having to let it go left Adashino feeling horribly bereft.

If moving on meant finding a cure, perhaps he might simply be ill forever. He could travel to the ends of the earth until the day he died, if only it meant he would never have to let his friend go.

To his own chagrin, Adashino thought himself a selfish man: that he would rather die before giving up what he felt, but he would also rather die before he admitted any of it out loud. There was no path to take, no way out that he wished to follow. He was far too stubborn, far too narcissistic to surrender his heart. He placed his fingers over his face and bowed his head, swallowing down a sob. Why should he let anything be taken from him? It was his own heart, after all.

He sat for what felt like hours in the middle of the road, hiding his face in his hands. What a stupid way for all of this to fall apart, he thought.

There was a soft _click, click, click_ against the ground, and Adashino looked up.

Tanyuu was standing over him, out of breath and shaking, her undersized crutches clasped firmly under arms. “Adashino…” It sounded like a plea.

Something in the way the scribe had followed after him, but Ginko hadn’t, felt like a punch in the gut.

He slouched. “I’m sorry for storming off,” he said. He felt weak, and tired, and didn’t want to fight with her― she’d done nothing wrong. “I shouldn’t have left like that. That was rude of me.”

Rather than scold him, Tanyuu dropped her crutches and sat down on the path in front of him. “You’re at perfect liberty to do what you like, leaving included. I can’t force you to do anything you don’t want to.”

He felt himself laugh in relief at her forgiveness, but it came out as a sob. He placed his hands back over his face. “I don’t know,” he breathed, “I just don’t want to feel empty in the end.”

Tanyuu hummed, just loud enough for Adashino to hear. It was soft, gentle, but something underneath it reminded him of the sadness he felt. Of the helplessness in his chest.

Tanyuu smiled weakly at him. “It’s okay, Adashino. I understand.”

Adashino went to speak, but again, for the second time ever in his life, was at a loss for words. His heart hammered against his ribs.

“I really… I really do understand,” Tanyuu repeated quietly. She looked away from him and down the road, her shoulders shaking. Suddenly, Adashino felt incredibly sorry for her. There were too many things written on her expression to name, and the worst part was that he recognised most of them. 

He reached across the distance between them and took one of her hands in his own. It was much smaller, and very warm. “Let’s go back.” His voice cracked.

Tanyuu turned her face back to him and nodded. She looked like she wanted to cry with him, but didn’t open her mouth to tell him why. Adashino _knew_ why, he _felt_ why, and he hated that Tanyuu felt it too. 

“Yes, let’s go back.”

For the first time in many hours, as he lifted the young woman up and began walking with her crutches held between his arms, despite how his heart was heavier than it had ever felt before… Adashino felt calm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the mystery reveals itself ೕ(˃̵ᴗ˂̵ ๑)  
> _  
> I am fuelled solely by caffeine and kudos, please leave me a little heart if you think I've earned it!


	5. Such Little Causes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That is the way it is, we always fall in love because of a detail, a nuance. It is a marker we set up for ourselves in the midst of the confusion, in the infinite space of love. The greatest passions come from such little causes.” ― Georges Rodenbach  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had a righteously miserable week so it's really nice to get back to this. It's so gentle, it's nice to think of relaxing things and be away from the world for a bit.

Adashino writes one letter back to the village. Then, he writes two. By the time Ginko has put his shoes on and has smoked his way through no less than four cigarettes, the doctor has written five different letters back to his village, all of which he passes to Tanyuu to send off. He also left her with the homely beaded box, telling her he didn’t need it anymore.

“I hope the village understands… this was meant to be two weeks, but now I’m away indefinitely.” He sounded sad, and genuinely so― not the sort of airs he put on when he wanted attention paid to him. “Do you suppose they’ll manage? I wonder what I’ll be missing while I’m away… although I’ll probably return and they’ll have replaced me, now that I think about it...”

Ginko watched the doctor and the scribe for several hours, standing in the doorway of the house and completely ready to leave, but his feet stayed planted on the floor, immobile.

It was a strange kind of thing, watching the two; at first, Ginko had thought the pair would spend their time talking of literature, of history or of science or any of the strange things Adashino liked to prattle on about. Tanyuu was well-read, and enjoyed hearing of new things― this was certainly what Ginko had thought would bring them together while he had been looking through the archives.

Instead, on their very first evening in the house, he’d come up to find the pair folding paper cranes. 

It was something he’d never thought Adashino could ever have the patience to do well, nor had he thought such a thing would interest Tanyuu whatsoever. And yet… they sat, over a hundred small paper birds folded between them, chattering between themselves about what sort of feeling the colour _blue_ had, and whether or not it would be easier to fight off ten duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck.

He’d found himself smiling, but he’d never let them see. He smiled at the memory, too.

In the present, watched as Adashino finished folding the last of the letters, pointing to each and asking Tanyuu if she might send each one at a specific time. The young woman was nodding, grinning, and assuring him she would do nothing short of exactly what he asked. 

Ginko felt terrible to tear the two apart in the end knowing they would likely never see each other again, but when noon had started to bear down overhead he’d forced a farewell and pulled Adashino onto the road.

He had so many questions he wanted to ask his friend, but after turning them all over in his head Ginko had eventually settled to ask nothing at all, and simply walk beside Adashino in silence.

There was something different about the quiet, though, something he was not quite prepared to name.

And of course he knew exactly why it was so. Playing it over in his head, Ginko could see with perfect clarity how pale Adashino had turned, and then how terribly red, when he had understood what was being asked of him. At first, Ginko had catalogued it for embarrassment, thinking nothing of it. But as he reflected, it seemed to be something akin to sadness, or anger, for Adashino’s eyes had turned only to the road, and his lips stayed sealed tight as they walked. 

Letting go was difficult.

Ginko wanted to tell his friend that he understood― but when he thought of saying so aloud, it didn’t sit right. He _didn’t_ understand. Adashino felt everything so deeply, so fully, that he was practically radiant with whatever emotion had enveloped his heart at any given moment. But he could allow himself to do that― Ginko never could. Living a life like his, never able to set roots down and _grow_ in a place, he had long ago discarded the idea of feeling anything too deeply. It only made it harder each time he had to let the emotion go― and he always had to let it go.

And so he _didn’t_ understand, and he never could.

But he tried, desperately, as he watched Adashino’s shoulders sink in defeat each time he drew breath.

They’d been sitting at dusk, under a cherry tree not too far off from the road, the first time he’d asked. It had also been the last.

“Adashino,” he’d said, so low it was nearly lost to the wind, “if you want to… if you want to talk about it―”

“I don’t.” His friend had drawn in a sharp breath between teeth. “I don’t, Ginko. Let’s just go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

There was something in the sharpness of Adashino’s words that had cut like a knife; there was no wound to see, but it had stolen his breath anyway.

Ginko thought of the first several days they had travelled together, and how easy and welcome it all had been. The first day, Adashino had been so out of breath he’d hardly spoken a word at all. But by the second, he’d remembered that he had a voice, and he hadn’t stopped using it since.

Quickly, the doctor had started a habit picking up small rocks that caught his eye as they walked―always on the left side of the road, strangely. Adashino had devoted an ungodly amount of time thereafter to explaining what each rock must be, how it was formed, and how it had likely made its way onto the road. How much of it was fiction and how much of it was science, Ginko had no idea― but he listened anyway, settling gently into the sound of Adashino’s voice. It had become so terribly easy to get lost in it, he’d forgotten what it was like to travel in silence.

He was reminded quite suddenly in the present, but the silence he had walked in before had never seemed so heavy as this. Ginko was unsure of how to fill it.

It was interesting when he considered: for all Adashino spoke, he shared very little of deeper self. His emotions, he gave as freely as the sun gave warmth. But for all the years he’d known the man, Ginko was only beginning to realise he hadn’t even known a fraction of who his friend was.

And now, it seemed, his friend was in love and he hadn’t ever offered a word about it. But Ginko could see it plain on Adashino’s face, the upset that had been written all over his expression when he’d been told he had to abandon his heart.

The mushi-shi wondered how he could have possibly missed it for so long… but apparently, Adashino could keep secrets if he tried.

Ginko lit another cigarette and looked up at the clouds. It was strange, this vulnerability Adashino had suddenly stopped hiding. Ginko had seen some of it trickle through when the man was drunk, but usually that had resulted in him simply sobbing over something ridiculous (“the moon is out during the day, but the sun outshines her so we never see… how selfish of the sun, isn’t that so sad?”), or whining over frivolous details (“green is _really_ the most beautiful colour, Ginko, but don’t tell anyone I think that. Of course I don’t have a favourite colour― that would be childish.”)

_Green, was it?_

Ginko was smiling despite himself. What a useless thing to know― but it was something, at least. That fact made him happy, for a moment, to ponder on. Of all the things to remember… He considered that maybe that sort of happiness was precisely why Adashino refused to let anything go. The warmth of small, stupid details.

“What are you grinning at?”

Ginko looked up from the road at the sound of his friend’s voice― the first words in hours. The sound was strangely hoarse. 

Not realising he’d been doing it until it had been mentioned, Ginko schooled his smile. “Details.”

“Details,” Adashino repeated. 

The mushi-shi took a breath from his cigarette, tasting the tobacco on his tongue for a long moment before exhaling. “I miss a lot of them, I think.”

“I see,” was all his friend said. 

The two were quiet for a long time, but it was gentler than before.

“You know, I met a blind woman once, when I was still apprenticing...” The sudden words that Adashino spoke werea welcome gift. Ginko looked over to his companion. “She had been blind her whole life, and hadn’t a clue what anything looked like at all. She saw only by sound, by smell, and by touch. And yet,” he considered, “I think she saw more in those around her than they saw in themselves. It was uncanny. She could stand before you and see your very heart.”

“And what did she see in _you_?” Ginko asked.

Adashino laughed― it was gentle, and genuine. “She knew I grew up by the sea by the texture of my hair.”

Ginko raised an eyebrow.

His friend shrugged, reading the way Ginko's eyes had asked something different than the question Adashino had answered. “She told me I was lonely.” His eyebrows pinched. “I hadn’t even realised it myself, but she was right. I had so many friends, and yet none of those friendships _mattered_.” Adashino paused, and then tilted his head at the mushi-shi. “Not much has changed since, I suppose― she’d probably say the same thing now.” He paused for a moment, looking over. “You know, I’m glad I met you, Ginko.” The words were nearly too heavy; then, Adashino smiled. “I don’t really think any of those friends from my apprenticeship would let me travel with them like this.”

Ginko let out a puff of smoke through his teeth, hiding a laugh. He had felt nervous, for a moment, but it bled out of him quickly. “A _month_ ,” he chastised. “And then I’m dropping you off on the side of the road to fend for yourself.”

“But _Ginko_ …”

“You can learn a lot in a month,” the mushi-shi offered. “Don’t underestimate yourself. You keep telling me you’re a clever man― I think you can learn most anything if you tried. Maybe you could even learn to forget.”

His friend smiled, but it was was weaker than before, more hesitant… almost sad, as he nodded back. Ginko swallowed the feeling that lodged in his throat, knowing he had misspoken, and brought his cigarette back up to lips to hide his frown.

#  🌱

Their conversation had grown slowly warmer after another few days had passed, but in the pauses there lay something cold. If he looked for too long, he could see how Adashino wore joy like a very thin mask atop his sorrow. So Ginko tried not to look.

Very rarely had he ever felt that silence needed to be filled― silence was always welcome, for it was just as much a part of the world as the voices it stole. But this silence between himself and Adashino, it was so very different than any other he had known. It made him think of drowning.

He wanted, perhaps selfishly, to ask Adashino about it again― about everything. Ginko wondered what he had missed, in all the times he was away, and worse still in the times he had been near. How many pieces of his heart were scattered about, how many had Ginko stepped over mistaking them to be mess? But he had tried to ask, and he’d been burned by it. He wouldn’t make the mistake again.

“Did I ever tell you? When I was a boy, one of my neighbours gave me an iris flower,” Adashino sighed, melancholy and pulling Ginko from his thoughts. They had passed by a great field of blossoms, still wet with dew. “I was so scared I cried. They’re very poisonous, you know― I thought she was telling me to leave her alone. Or to die, maybe.” 

Ginko huffed. “So you’ve always overthought things.”

“Well, you can’t blame me, can you?” Adashino had his thumbs tucked casually, perhaps rudely, into his _obi_. He drummed his fingers on his waist. “Turns out I ended up with poisonous flowers about anyway. What a premonition...”

“I wonder if she was an oracle,” Ginko mused, but his heart wasn’t in the pretense. He stole a glance at his friend again, at the flowers in his hair he lamented. How bright the blue was against the black, he thought. Something in him wanted to reach out and touch. He didn't.

Adashino shrugged, and Ginko’s stare shifted from his head to his eyes. “She married some fisherman; if she was an oracle, she never made any money from it. She might have married a lord of some kind, instead.”

Ginko took a puff of his cigarette― nearly forgotten of it; it had been burning away in his fingers. “Love doesn’t care for money,” he exhaled. Then, considering for a moment, “was she related to that blind woman?”

Adashino laughed; part of it was terribly hollow. “No, but maybe I attract those sorts. Strange, isn’t it? I had a lot of warnings in my life, obvious or not. Not that I ever really heeded any of it,” he admitted.

Ginko looked at him sideways.

Adashino groaned and pinched the bridge of his crinkling nose. “Now you’re going to tell me that the universe warned me about all this, and I ignored that too, aren’t you?”

Ginko shook his head, but allowed half a smile to cross his lips. “The universe warned you of nothing― _I_ warned you. More than once.”

“I could be dead,” Adashino tried.

“You could be sitting at home,” Ginko countered. “You could be day-drinking, sitting under the tree behind your house, listening to your neighbour play the _biwa_.”

“He plays a _shamisen_ , Ginko. They’re not even similar.” Adashino shook his head. “It would be nice, though, wouldn’t it?”

“Hm,” he agreed. “I hope you don’t hate this too much― there’s no telling how long you’ll be travelling for.”

Adashino stretched, pulling his arms over his head and yawning. He stumbled for a moment on the road, and Ginko just rolled his eye. “But you said I have a month, didn’t you?”

“A month with _me_ ,” he answered, not without a droll in his tone.

“Do you really hate me that much, Ginko? Only a _month_?”

The mushi-shi rolled his eye. “Listen, it's for you― not for me. It’s dangerous to t―”

“―travel with you, I know: I could come into harm’s way, it’s so unpredictable, you wouldn’t want to cause worry,” Adashino cut him off brusquely, counting on his fingers. “But look at it this way: next time you get stabbed, you have a physician on-call.”

Ginko winced at the memory, the flash a fish-gutting knife sticking crudely into his shoulder. _I took away their fortune_ , he had told Adashino, _I may have left them absolutely nothing in the end_. What he hadn’t mentioned was how he’d walked a day and a half with the knife in his shoulder to have it stitched up. How he’d passed two other villages, both with skilled healers. How somehow, the two days of pain had been worth the soft touch that followed the pinch of thread to his wound.

“I admit, it might not be terrible to have you around sometimes.” 

“Sometimes?”

“Mhmm.”

He felt a shove into his shoulder, but it was gentle. “So like… _two_ months?”

There was a short, contented silence that fell between them for a moment.

“Hey, Ginko?”

“Yeah?” He dropped his cigarette, realising most of it had burnt away already. _What a waste._ How distracted he was.

“If you could go anywhere, I mean… _anywhere_ , where would it be?”

Ginko closed his eye and considered, but more than anything he thought about how there was nothing to consider at all. “Somewhere on the coast, I think. I’d like to be somewhere quiet, where I could rest.”

Adashino’s brows went up. “No mountains?”

“I’d rather not deal with those,” he answered honestly. Too many intricacies. “I see them too often. I’d like to be somewhere open for a bit.”

The request was soft, almost like a secret. Ginko nearly felt like he was falling:

“You could rest with me, if you wanted.”

It was like something he wasn’t supposed to have heard. The words themselves were innocent, but beneath was something much deeper, an entire sea to be lost in. They were so quiet, the wind nearly stole them.

Ginko didn’t answer. He lit another cigarette instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🌱 A _biwa_ is a wide-bodied string instrument with a short neck, whereas a _shamisen_ has a smaller body and a very long neck to it  
> .
> 
> I always pictured Adashino as the sort of person who would be up late at sleepovers, the last to fall asleep. Probably hanging his head off the bed upside-down and asking if stars had feelings... also personally I'd rather fight ten duck-sized horses.  
> .


	6. Between Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.” ― Pablo Neruda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I have to ask for forgiveness for a double-update... I wrote this chapter and realised it was far too long for my liking (like 4000 words instead of ~2000); I will post the second part tomorrow, as per the usual schedule! So the chapter count for the fic has gone up because once again I split a chapter that was not supposed to be split, because I just... write a lot of words... (I write too much, then I cut it, then I write and realise it got long again......)
> 
> You will also notice the little separation emoji has changed. I've decided there will be 3 arcs to this story, and I figured it was an alright way to denote each was by giving it a seperate divider. Anyway, I also like emojis. ❤

Adashino closed his eyes and lay back on his sleeping roll, listening contentedly to the sounds of the bamboo forest around him. It was so quiet, he could even hear Ginko breathing: light, even, just off to his left. The mushi-shi was sitting with his back against his pack, his head bowed and shoulders slouched. He often did that, in the evenings: just sat like that. To Adashino it looked very similar to a meditation, save he knew it wasn’t. When he had asked about it, Ginko had told him something about a second eyelid, and a river of light under the earth.

Adashino lay awake absently, wondering what a second eyelid was. Ginko had said that it was something people forgot about the moment they took air into their lungs, and it had to be relearned. Some window into true darkness, into true light, that was abandoned in the simple nature of being human. The doctor thought there were probably a lot of other things that humanity had forgotten at some point, foolishly or otherwise.

He sat up slowly and looked over at Ginko, something pinching between his ribs. _Maybe you could even learn to forget._

“Don’t _ever_ suggest that to me again, you useless mushi-shi,” he breathed. How empty he would be without this feeling.

Adashino rubbed the heel of his palm to the corner of one of his eyes and stifled a yawn. It was hardly dark out, the sun setting gently on a horizon that was swallowed by the bamboo trees. There was something kind in it, in the way the light spilled from orange, to yellow, to green, cresting through the plants without a care. It cast shades of mint and gold, falling like a halo against Ginko’s white hair. Adashino wanted to close the distance between them, to do far more than simply look; there was something in the softness of the air that made him weak. The forest was so gentle, he thought it might forgive any mistake he could ever possibly make.

Instead, he lay back and closed his eyes again. It hurt to look at the other man, but it hurt to look away. There had to be some kind of peace in the middle, he thought. He would take the month that was offered him, and then he would turn away. He would let go, he would move on, as he was truly supposed to do. Forever, if that was how it had to be… but until that dawn came, he could afford to be selfish for one more night. He could lay by, and simply be near.

#  🎋

Time seemed to slow as they made their way out of the forest: no matter how far they walked, Adashino found the sun hardly moved. All he could see was the cascade of light it cast, filtering through the bamboo, spreading out like a veil between the trees. The sun grew ever so slightly dimmer the further they walked― it was a steady downwards slope, into a valley of some kind or another. The bamboo loomed overhead.

“Some bamboo can grow up to 3 _shaku_ per day, if they have enough light.” Adashino bent his head back, squinting up to the roof of the forest and how it stretched towards the sky. “Imagine being that tall…”

Ginko only hummed. Adashino wasn’t sure if he was being ignored accidentally, or if his friend really didn’t care to hear about bamboo facts for the rest of the afternoon.

“Most of the trees here are all identical,” Adashino pressed. He increased his pace until he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Ginko along the thin path. “All these trees share a single root system, as they’re all propagates of a mother tree. Some types only flower once a century, but when they do the entire forest flowers at once.”

“I see,” Ginko said.

“Do you really, though? Ginko, think about it seriously. We’re walking through an entire _multiple_ of family, so many identical siblings, and―”

The breath was stolen clean from his lungs as Ginko’s arm crossed his chest, stopping him in his tracks. The sudden weight made the doctor cough violently, like he had been hit with a board across the ribs. Adashino staggered backwards, blinking in confusion as his eyes watered: Ginko stood with his arm out, frowning down the trail. His shoulders were square, his feet planted. The cigarette he’d held in his fingers was on the ground, leaving a small trail of smoke as it burned out.

“What is it?”

Ginko looked back at his friend, who was now half a pace behind him, and dropped his arm. “Did you bring a scarf?”

Adashino frowned. “It’s late spring, why would I need―”

Before he could finish, Ginko had stripped his pack off and was digging through it. Adashino considered it a cabinet of wonders― he never had any idea how Ginko fit anything into it, for it seemed to be nearly endless when compared with its actual size. Adashino often wondered if a secret dimension lay inside, like the tunnel that ran through the _Uro_ silk-egg Ginko carried with him for letters.

The doctor crouched beside him, ignoring how his knees cracked as he bent. “What is it?”

Ginko pulled a long strip of dark fabric from one of the many drawers in his pack, and passed it to Adashino. “Wrap this around your nose and mouth.”

“Sure, okay.” Adashino took the scarf, his fingers brushing with Ginko’s for half of a moment. He swallowed. “Seriously, Ginko, what is it? You don’t have to be so cryptic.”

The mushi-shi tilted his head down the trail. “Some kind of mushi is up ahead; I think you can see this one, too.” He pulled another scarf from his box and began tying it over his face. “It looks like a fog. I’m not sure what it really is, but you’d be safer not to breathe it in.”

Adashino stood, scarf clutched between his fingers, and squinted down the path; maybe he did need his one eye to be checked… With both eyes open, he could only see a vague blur further down the trail. If he closed his right eye and looked only with his left, he found he could see exactly what Ginko was talking about: a very thin, grey mist with a strange glow was cloaking the edge of the path.

“Wow...” he found himself saying, entirely without meaning to. He had a hard time remembering to breathe, for his heart was taking up far too much room in his chest. “Is that _really_ a mushi?”

“Stop gawking and cover your mouth. It’s probably a bad idea to swallow it.” Ginko pulled the scarf from Adashino’s fingers and began folding it over his friend’s face. Adashino felt his cheeks redden ever so slightly, but he was unsure if it was from the scolding or from how Ginko’s hands were brushing against his hair. His fingers adjusted the scarf across Adashino’s cheeks, and pulled it taught behind his head. The scarf smelled like sweat, like smoke, and like earth.

“Thanks,” the doctor said, breathing in deeply through the fabric.

“Stop staring and hurry up.”

He followed Ginko down the path, eyes unable to focus on one thing nor another: as the mushi cloud came into clear view, it took all of Adashino’s control to not reach out and run towards it like a child. It had a strange, silver glow to it, and it made the air cold as they neared it. But as they walked through it, it felt nearly warm: it clung to his clothes like dew, as though recently-warmed by soft sunlight.

“What exactly is this?” Adashino stopped in the middle of the cloud, turning around slowly. He kept passing his fingers through it, amazed he could see it. Amazed he could _feel_ it. It didn’t feel like normal fog, and each time it touched his skin too quickly it fizzled out like small fireworks. 

“It looks like a _Kufuku-kiri_ ,” Ginko said. The scarf he wore muffled his words. “There are a few different kinds, though, so it’s hard to know exactly by just walking through it.”

The name seemed sinister, but Adashino could only smile through the scarf at the wonder. “This is amazing…” He tried to catch some in his hands, but the droplets disappeared into sparks against his palms. He felt giddy, like a child, and didn’t want to have to hide it. It made him think vaguely of fireflies, and how as a child he’d chased them as they blinked in the summer dusk.

Ginko watched him quietly for many minutes, hands in the pockets of his trousers. If he had a smile on his face under his scarf, Adashino didn’t see. He was too busy running his hands through the sparking fog, closing his eyes and feeling it dissolve against his skin. It left small, red marks against his palms. It felt like the first taste of sake, or pure sunlight in his hair, he thought. Or Ginko's smile.

“We should get going,” the mushi-shi said softly after a time. “There’s a town we can stop in for the night in the bottom of this valley. We can come back and look at the fog later, if you really want, but we should find a place to stay before it gets dark again.”

Adashino was quietly grateful at what Ginko offered: a trip back despite how it was opposite their intended path. “Okay,” he said, finally dropping his hands from the mist. He felt like he were walking through magic itself, and something in that made it hard to let go of. 

And besides, Adashino had always hated letting go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🎋 A _shaku_ / 尺 is a unit of measurement that's about like... 1 foot. 1/3 of a metre.   
> 🎋 _Kufuku kiri_ translates to _hungry fog_
> 
> There is a very small tie-in in this chapter to an episode in season 1, but you may have to squint to find it... anyway I hope you enjoy some Bamboo Facts


	7. Thick Skin, Thin Veil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I desire / And I crave. / You set me on fire." - Sappho

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol I lied in the last chapter notes, have the part I was gonna post tomorrow. It's Friday. You can have some fic. As a treat.  
> -  
> -  
> Me: this is gonna be a cute little 10k thing, I'm so excited!  
> Also me: is at 20k words and we're about halfway done (but im still excited!)

When they reached the bottom of the valley, the fog didn’t lift. It coated the valley floor and stretched up towards the sun, now nearly fully blotted out by the mist. It stole the sounds of the forest Adashino had loved so dearly, and left everything about it a muted white.

Adashino squinted upwards, frowning under his― _Ginko’s_ ―scarf. He felt so terribly alone. “Are you sure there’s a town around here? It seems deserted.”

Ginko shrugged. “It should be just a few minutes up ahead; it’s small, but it’s there. We probably can’t see or hear it because of the mushi.” Adashino could see worry lines on Ginko’s forehead, just beneath his bangs, but he said nothing of them.

“I don’t think we’ll have to backtrack up the valley to see more fog later,” Adashino offered. He tried to smile, but the crease in Ginko’s brow made it difficult. 

_Was this not supposed to happen?_ There were nerves beginning to build in Adashino’s stomach― the more he looked at Ginko and the way the other man spoke without words, the more uneasy he felt.

The mushi-shi continued along the path without another word, and Adashino pattered after him. He hated the worried silence, and how it spoke volumes.

After many long minutes of walking, just as Ginko had suggested, they came upon a house. It stood beside a small marker, one that Adashino figured indicated the edge of the village. Rather than continue down the trail, Ginko stepped up onto the porch of the small home and knocked on the frame of the door, rapping three times. Unsure of what to do, Adashino followed and stood just behind him, fidgeting awkwardly. He felt impossibly out of place.

A burst of hot air came forth from the house as the door slid open: inside, a large fire was crackling away. Adashino staggered back― the heat pressed against his face and made him begin to sweat, even from the distance. Ginko, however, didn’t flinch.

 _Fire? At the end of spring?_ Adashino coughed as the heat hit his face, stealing his breath through the scarf. He turned his head away to try to shield himself.

Ginko, again, was unphased.

“Hello,” the mushi-shi said, “we’re looking for a place to stay the night. Would you know anywhere near here?”

He addressed the woman who answered the door: she was clad in a gentle pink yukata, and her long hair was in a messy fashion over her shoulder. Sweat stuck to her brow and her cheeks were red from the heat. Her fingers shook on the frame of the door.

“Please come inside,” she said, before anything else. “It’s safer.”

Ginko nodded and kicked off his shoes without question. Not knowing what else to do, Adashino scrambled after him and peeled his sandals off. He hated the idea of stepping into the over-warmed house, but followed anyway. He could already feel his juban sticking to his skin, and wanted nothing more than to peel it off before his sweat wore through to his yukata too. He doubted it was a very becoming look, but he knew he was in company: Ginko’s shirt was starting to turn see-through at the collar, and hair was plastered to his forehead, damp with either the remnants of the fog or sweat from the hot house, despite how he pretended to not be bothered by it.

Inside, seeing that the mist was nowhere to be found, Adashino pulled the scarf from his face and breathed a sigh of relief; unlike Ginko, he would not hide the discomfort he’d been feeling. The air burned his lungs, though it was not entirely unwelcome. Ginko did the same as he, and the pair stood panting for several seconds before the mushi-shi managed to collect himself and nod his thanks to their host. 

“The fire is clever,” he said, and his voice came out completely ragged. Something about it made Adashino’s heart pound against his ribs uncomfortably fast.

“It keeps the fog out,” the woman answered Ginko, seating herself along the edge of the room on the floor. “It’s uncomfortable, but safe.” 

Adashino took his eyes off Ginko and frowned at the fire that burned in the middle of the room. He watched it dance, hungry, focussing on the way it moved to try to balance out the irregularity of his heartbeat.

“Is there still a village down the road from here, eastward?” Ginko asked quietly.

The woman nodded. “Yes. You won’t find much open, though, as it’s been very quiet since the fog came along.”

“How long has that been?”

Ginko shrugged his backpack off and sat down beside it. Adashino stared for a moment before doing the same, not knowing what else to do. He felt awkward to remain standing.

The woman’s voice lifted his attention back to her, soft but poignant: “Several weeks, at least. There was a landslide, and the fog came right after. It hasn’t left since.”

“I see,” Ginko answered, but despite the neutrality of the statement Adashino could see there was a heavy spark of interest in his stare. His chest grew tight with a thought, a dim desire for that stare to be on him instead, but he swallowed it away. He had no right. 

“Are you the only one left here?” Ginko inquired of the woman.

She shook her head. “No, most of our village is still here. We are all hiding, though, afraid of the fog. It bites your lungs when you breathe it.” 

Ginko nodded, and reached up to palm his face and press sweat out of his eye. “Perhaps it’s lucky we came by,” he said, and tilted his chin at Adashino.

The doctor could only shrug, having absolutely nothing to add. Was it lucky? The heat was beginning to get to him, and he had a hard time mulling further on the thought.

The woman tilted her head at then, her eyebrows pinching. “I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Haruko,” she said. She peeled a bit of her yukata away from her sweat-slicked shoulder, and then pressed it back into line.

“Adashino,” the doctor said weakly. He wanted to imitate her motion with his own outfit, to feel fresh air against his skin instead of hot sweat, but he refrained.

“Ginko,” the other man said, nodding. “I’m a mushi-shi. I think you might need one, funnily enough.” The look on his face reminded Adashino of when he tried to sell him something: clever and knowing, some strange sort of confidence beneath it.

“Mushi-shi?” Haruko echoed the word back.

Ginko nodded. “Yes. What you have around you isn’t a normal fog, but you knew that already. I make my living dealing with things like this.”

Haruko looked to Adashino then, as though seeking answers. The doctor could only shrug and put his hands in the air. “I’m just travelling with him, I don’t know anything about this fog.”

The woman didn’t look away from him, though, as he dismissed himself. “Your hands…” Haruko pointed from where she sat, and Adashino followed the line of her fingers by sight. Turning his palms towards himself, he was horrified at what he saw: his skin was missing in impossible patches, the edges of his fingers raw and red. The lines of his palm collected blood within them, cracking and broken for no reason he could explain.

“You played with it too much.” Before Adashino could react, Ginko’s fingers were around his wrists, twisting his hands so he could see. 

Adashino swallowed, hoping frantically Ginko wasn’t able to feel how his pulse jumped against his skin. “It doesn’t hurt,” he said stupidly. For it didn’t.

But then, he realised, it didn’t feel like _anything_ either. His hands were neither warm nor cold. As he moved his fingers, he felt absolutely nothing at all. He saw Ginko’s touch glance across his palm, and no part of it registered for him to feel. His pale finger came away with blood on it. _His_ blood. Adashino felt as though he was watching himself from afar, pressed against glass. The touch he witnessed against his own was so gentle, so soft as it turned his hands over and over again, and yet he felt absolutely nothing of it.

He could perhaps kill to be able to feel it, Adashino thought. His tongue felt so terribly heavy, his heart like lead.

“Are you sure it doesn’t hurt?”

Adashino jumped as Haruko spoke, and Ginko did exactly the same― his hands fell from the mushi-shi’s and onto his lap, as each pulled his hands away from the other in surprise. He opened his mouth to reply, but found his pulse was blocking his throat quite suddenly.

Adashino shook his head, composing himself after a moment. “No, it doesn’t hurt at all. I don’t… I don’t feel _anything_.” He looked down at his hands, and how broken apart they were. He felt suddenly very dizzy. “Skin grows back.” He wondered if the feeling would come back too.

If Ginko was worried, the mushi-shi said nothing of it aloud. Rather, he shook his head and turned away, leaning back towards his box. He undid several clasps and began carding through drawers, mumbling to himself. After a few seconds, Ginko pulled out a bottle and tossed it to Adashino. It landed on the doctor’s lap without a sound. Adashino could only stare down at it, mute.

“You two are welcome to stay here for a bit, if you like.” Haruko began to stand from where she was seated, pulling her yukata back up to sit on her shoulders properly. “It’s just my wife and I, but we have room for you if you need. The village head could see you in the morning, and see if you can be of help to us.”

Ginko nodded. “That’s very kind. We would appreciate that very much.”

Adashino stared dumbly down at his lap, and at the little glass bottle that sat in the folds of his yukata. He found his mouth dry, devoid of words; this was becoming a trend he wasn’t fond of.

Ginko was so good at effortlessly inserting himself into things, he thought; they had a place to stay and hadn’t even asked for one. Adashino somehow felt like he was imposing, even though the offer had been made openly. But he wasn’t able to help, not with this… was he of any use at all?

He looked up at Haruko, his eyebrows pinching. His tongue felt heavy. “Are you sure your wife won’t mind?”

She shrugged and offered him a smile. “We don’t often get company; Izumi would be happy, I’m sure.” She paused. “Give me a moment and I’ll bring you both some water, and you can get settled.”

Haruko disappeared into the next room, and Adashino used the time free of scrutiny to begin opening the bottle Ginko had thrown him. Its contents looked very similar to aloe, but there was a strange blue tint to the gel that came out. He applied it to his palms carefully, and set the bottle aside. 

“It should be a bit better by tomorrow,” Ginko said, tilting his head at Adashino. The doctor looked over at his friend. “Normal medicine probably won’t work on that right now― at least not as well.”

Adashino frowned. “You could have warned me.” He thought dimly of how Ginko’s hands had touched his, for what was the only time he could ever recall, and he hadn’t been able to feel it. It was the worst sort of punishment, and he could say nothing of it to the other man at all.

Ginko shrugged. “You never learn when I warn you. You don’t understand unless you get burned: You need to be more careful.”

There was a certain light in Ginko’s eye beneath the snark, a mirror of an expression Adashino had seen him wear weeks ago. It looked almost, but not entirely, like regret.

“You almost sound worried,” Adashino said weakly. He hated Ginko’s expression with his whole heart, and hated more that he was the cause of it. He looked down at his hands, at his half-mangled palms caked in the strange gel. Everything felt so heavy. “Thanks, anyway.”

The mushi-shi nodded and leaned back against the wall; the worry in his brow disappeared. Adashino studied his face as he rested, all the lines he knew by heart, tracing again and again in his selfishness. It was almost too much to bear.

Ginko’s skin was wet with sweat, and his breathing was heavy, he looked contentedly relaxed as his eye closed. There was a lazy smile on his lips, concern no more than a shadow. Adashino leaned back against the wall as well, letting his head rest against one of the beams. He thought again of that smile as he drew his eyes to the fire, thinking of the lips he wanted to touch with his own more than anything else. He felt robbed of something he had never been owed, and he hated himself for it in that moment.

The heat in the room was beginning to chew at him. He could feel the sweat snaking its way down his back, pulling his outfit greedily against his skin. He closed his eyes for a moment, pulling at the collar to puff air down into the fabric. He wished he had a fan. He leaned his head weakly against one of the panels of the wall. He continued to pull at the collar of his outfit, tired of being tired.

“That’s lewd,” Ginko scolded quietly. Adashino jumped at the sound nonetheless. “Sit still and at least _pretend_ you have some dignity.”

Adashino looked down at himself slowly, at the sweat that stuck to his bare chest, and at just how much skin was showing as his yukata had slowly untucked itself. He didn’t mind for the moment, but the back of his neck got hot when he wondered why Ginko did. 

His mouth went dry when he considered why Ginko was looking at him at all.

“You’re not one to talk about that,” he said slowly, tilting his chin at how Ginko’s white shirt had grown nearly see-through, wet from perspiration. It stuck suggestively to his skin along his shoulders, collarbones and the top of his chest. Adashino swallowed down the want that was starting to curl in his belly and growing heavy on his tongue. The heat of the room made him feel impossibly weak.

The mushi-shi turned away and cursed under his breath, and Adashino could see the edges of his ears turning red. The room was stifling, the fire in the middle of the room burning away with reckless abandon and stealing his breath from his lungs, but for the first time Adashino found himself lacking a single complaint about it. He smiled to himself and leaned back, closing his eyes.

#  🎋

Haruko came back long moments later with a tray and several small dishes, jostling Adashino awake again. She carried a tall pitcher as well, and Adashino was not sure he had ever been so happy to see water before in his life. The fire in the middle of the home left him feeling absolutely parched, but he had hardly realised it until Haruko handed him a cup and he was allowed to finally drink.

Adashino nearly dropped his empty cup as the door to the house slid open without warning― loud, reckless, shaking the frame. He jumped and scrambled to find his composure, heart thrown nearly halfway across the room in alarm. To his left, Ginko hardly blinked.

Of course, the disturbance was nothing to be disturbed about at all.

Dressed in many layers of fabric, a small woman stepped inside. Her stride was sure as she stepped inside, but became tentative the moment she saw Ginko and Adashino, each sitting on one side of the door. She pulled down the fabric about her mouth and the shawl over her head, revealing high cheekbones and thin lips curling into a confused frown. Her lips parted to speak, a question already there.

“Izumi!”

Her scowl disappeared as Haruko pulled her into her arms; Adashino ached as he saw the relief in her eyes, the comfort as she pulled the other woman closer. She lay her cheek against Haruko’s shoulder, fingers curling into her yukata. The motion was so familiar, so natural, something in the doctor’s ribs grew tight in envy.

“We have guests,” Haruko murmured, nearly lost to the crackle of the fire. 

“I can see that,” the other woman, evidently Izumi, answered. She took half a step back, but her fingers lingered on Haruko’s side. “Travellers? I told you not to invite vagabonds when I'm not here...”

“Izumi!” Haruko stepped back ever so slightly and frowned. “Be kind! These two are very polite, don’t speak so rudely like that!”

Adashino opened his mouth to defend himself, embarrassed, but Ginko spoke first: “I don’t mind; regardless of who we are, your wife was kind enough to offer us shelter.” He stood, and then bowed his head to Izumi. “I’m Ginko.”

“Izumi,” she answered. Her sharp features turned to Adashino, and the doctor swallowed nervously. She stayed close to Haruko, but her fingers fell from her wife’s side at last.

Adashino scrambled to a stand, brushing his yukata down where it crumpled. He felt bad, for the first time, at how much skin he was showing and how disheveled he must appear to her. He bowled, face reddening. “I’m Adashino.”

“Ginko says he might be able to help us with the fog,” Haruko spoke. Her fingers went with great familiarity to her wife’s shoulders, and began helping her out of the layers of clothing she was wearing. “We’ll see tomorrow what the village head thinks. It’s the best chance we have right now.”

Izumi nodded to her, but her lips stayed pursed. She was stiff as Haruko helped her remove her outerwear, never once breaking her stare. “Where are you from, Ginko?” Her eyes narrowed on the mushi-shi.

“Around,” he answered cryptically. “I’m a mushi-shi.”

If Izumi had wanted a better answer, she quickly seemed to forget― her eyes brightened and her face softened instantly at his words. “My uncle was a mushi-shi… I haven’t heard that word in a long time.” She looked over at Adashino. “Is the fog here some sort of mushi?”

“I’m just a doctor,” Adashino answered her; for the first time, he wasn’t sure if he should feel ashamed of it or not. “A… a regular doctor,” he added weakly. 

He felt utterly useless― that was the barren feeling in his chest, not shame. He was sidelined, a spectator, no more even than a nuisance. He looked over at Ginko, but the mushi-shi was looking at Izumi. That strange spark had returned to his eye, and something sharp panged in Adashino’s ribs at the sight. How foolish he was to have ever believed he would be content with being second, to be satisfied by watching and never being a part of Ginko's world... and yet, he stood still, settling.

Izumi’s dark eyes were on Ginko, just as Adashino’s were. The mushi-shi nodded at her in return. “I think this fog is a mushi, yes.” Then, “I’m not sure what to do about it just yet, but I’m hoping I can help in some way. Your village deserves to be safe for you.”

Izumi stepped out of the last of her outer layers, her fingers lingering between Haruko’s for a moment longer than necessary. Adashino ached something terrible. 

Izumi smiled, but there was something sad about it. “I hope you can help us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ catch me sobbing at 2am over Sappho's poems like the queer mess I am


	8. Needed Too Much

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I needed him too much to let myself want him” ― Mackenzie Herbert

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yes hello! You may have noticed the last two weeks I put chapters up a day early... I have nothing to say for myself  
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ we are now updating Fridays instead of Saturdays because time is not real.
> 
> OH ALSO guess who split another chapter. That's right! ME. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ So the chapter count went up... do not know if I should apologise for this or not.
> 
> I have many, MANY other things to say about this chapter as a whole but instead I'll just can it and let you read! Leave me comments and-or kudos if you so desire because I CANT even explain how lovely it is to know someone enjoys my little fic!! Thank you all so much for reading!!!

As had become his unfortunate habit, Ginko lay awake while the night passed overhead. He felt tendrils of sweat sticking to his neck, snaking their way down his back and along every inch of his skin. He’d long stopped trying to unstick his hair from his forehead, and had resigned himself to the feeling of his trousers clinging to his thighs no matter how he sat. The heat was nearly unbearable, but it was preferable to the fog that lay in wait outside. He wondered how long this could last. He wondered how the village had lasted, as well.

He edged himself close to the door and cracked it open, lighting a cigarette to still his itchy fingers. The heat leaked outside, pressing the fog back just enough that he could smoke without a bother. He knew Adashino would scold him if he were awake― _it’s rude to smoke without asking, and indoors no less!―_ but the man was sleeping and so Ginko could keep his own peace. The mushi-shi blew smoke out the door, pressing his teeth together as the tobacco coated his tongue.

He wasn’t sure what he could do for this place, but he had offered to try. He wasn’t sure if that was a foolish gambit, but it was better than nothing. If nothing else, they might find hope in his visit. They needed that, and desperately. Izumi had told him their livestock had grown sick in the fog, and had been moved to the neighbouring village up the hills to be safe. But their gardens and crops, immovable, would not grow; no sunlight came down through the mist. Haruko had spoken of how elders grew weak in the heat that bit back the fog, weaker still than when the fog chewed their lungs. Children, too, who did not understand and grew tired of being inside, their skin peeled away when they grew restless. 

An entire village could not be relocated so easily. 

Ginko thought about the mist, and how he had encountered similar cases― always in forests and mountainsides, and always before dawn. He had never known this mushi to stay long in one place, never known it to be a nuisance as it had become here. He thought about the landslide Haruko had mentioned. He thought again about how sunlight did not reach the valley since the incident. He closed his eye and wondered what might be done of this. He came up short. He needed light.

He thought briefly of the light in Adashino’s eyes, the wonder as the man had reached out to touch the mist at the crest of the valley. He wondered if the feeling could be bottled. He saw things he shouldn’t in those expressions, imagining moments that weren’t there, a fire to rival the dawn. It was dangerous. He was trespassing within those thoughts into a realm he had long turned away from, a place had no right to seek.

Everything, even those dear, had to be kept at a distance.

For a moment, he allowed himself to ache. And then he muted the feeling, as he muted most others. It was safe, and it was familiar.

The mushi-shi took another breath of his cigarette and leaned back against the edge of the door. It was so silent, he thought, nothing but the sound of the fire eating to keep him company. No crickets, no cicadas. No wind, either. It was as things had been many weeks ago, but rather than comforting he… he found it suddenly unfamiliar.

There was a peace in it, though, one he had nearly forgotten in the comfort of Adashino’s voice. He turned his eye into the room, gazing across it slowly. Izumi and Haruko lay next to each other, wrapped together despite the heat. Their hair was tangled with sweat, their faces red from the warmth, but there was no discomfort on their brows. They were so content, he thought, each holding the other gently in dreams. Ginko’s heart pinched for a moment, falling into something he shouldn’t allow himself to feel. He felt so terribly weak: the dark, the heat, it chewed at him bit by bit.

The dark of his mind wondered if he was allowing it to.

Ginko looked over then at Adashino, and how the man lay splayed on the other side of the fire. He always slept like that for some strange reason, limbs completely askew― no matter where they stopped for the night, he was like that. Any blanket he started with always ended up about his waist, or tangled around his thighs. How it was comfortable, Ginko had no idea; Adashino slept soundly despite it all, half a smile on his lips. The little blue flowers in his hair danced in the warmth of the night. Sweat stuck his dark hair to his forehead and made his skin shiny, far too much of it showing again as his yukata fell loose about his shoulders. There was a thin scar, one Ginko had never noticed before, just below his left collarbone. He traced it with his eye, wondering dimly what it would feel like if his thumb were to trace it instead.

_You could rest with me, if you wanted._

Ginko frowned at himself, realising his own foolishness― there was a heat along the back of his neck he should not become acquainted with. The air was too heavy, and so was his heart. He closed his eye, pressed out his cigarette, and thought only of the darkness outside.

#  🎋

When dawn rose, it was not by the sun that Ginko realised it: it was how Izumi and Haruko both sat up and yawned loudly, startling the mushi-shi from what fitful sleep he’d managed to get. He sat leaning by the door still, his head pillowed against his wooden pack; he didn't doubt there was a mark on his cheek from the corner. He scrubbed the last vestiges of sleep from his eye and stood, nodding to both women as he stretched.

Ginko padded over to Adashino once he was fully awake, seeing no point in delaying. The man was still lying awkwardly on his back, limbs akimbo and his yukata barely clinging to his waist for its life. The palms of his hands were still red, but Ginko could see improvement over the evening before. 

_What a mess,_ Ginko thought, but he found himself unable to look away. His eye fell again to the thin scar on Adashino’s chest. The back of his neck was beginning to feel far too warm again. 

“Get up,” his lips said, and he prodded Adashino’s bare chest with his foot. The doctor rolled onto his side and curled onto himself, and so Ginko dug his heel into the meat of his exposed shoulder. “Wake up…”

“But Ginko…”

The mushi-shi didn’t hear what followed― as Adashino rolled, the crown of flowers on his head followed, so incredibly blue. There only one Ginko saw clearly, smaller than the others, just behind Adashino’s left ear: it was dull, dark...

_Wilted._

Time seemed to freeze for a moment as he stared, his eye wide. Ginko wanted to lean down and touch it, to see if it were true. He held still. Relief started as a trickle into his heart, a cool absolution for guilt he knew shouldn’t be his.

The mushi-shi felt a hot hand on his ankle, and Adashino was shoving him away and snapping him from his thoughts before he could blink. “It’s still dark out… go away, Ginko...”

Startled and fighting to hold his balance, he grimaced down at his friend. “It’s always dark here, now. Get up. It’s morning.” He withdrew his leg from Adashino’s grip and pressed his heel into the middle of the doctor’s back. He stared at the little dying flower, his heart in his throat.

Groaning and cursing, Adashino finally gave in and rolled himself onto his hands and knees, breaking Ginko’s stare. He stretched like a cat for a moment before sitting back onto his heels. He remained in a daze for several long seconds, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The realisation that both Haruko and Izumi were in the room, and that both were quietly giggling at him, came upon the man slowly. He looked over at them in confusion, blinking, and then up at Ginko. Lastly, Adashino looked down at himself, and his state of undress. With a sharp breath in, he wasted no time in pulling his limbs back into the sleeves of his yukata and resettling it around his shoulders and chest. He scowled up at Ginko as he finished adjusting the collar, re-tying the obi without looking down at it. He pushed his messed hair out of his eyes and huffed, frowning.

“I slept spectacularly, by the way, thanks for asking.”

Ginko rolled his eye and walked past him to the fire, picking up a poker to stoke the dying flames back to life. “Go help with breakfast and make yourself useful.”

He could nearly hear the indignance in Adashino’s movements, but the doctor stood wordlessly and made his way over to Izumi and Haruko. After a brief discussion, the two women stood and they all made their way into an adjacent room. Ginko heard the slide of door panels, and then silence. He continued poking at the fire, wondering if he should tell Adashino what he’d seen. 

He decided not to.

If Adashino was forgetting, letting go, saying something of it might undo what work he’d put into his heart. Ginko refused to do that to him.

The mushi-shi pushed the thoughts of the mushi aside and listened instead to the sounds of the home as it came alive, and sat back and gave into the new wave of sweat coating his skin. He should change his shirt, he thought, but there was hardly a point. Maybe he would later.

A minute may have passed, or several, but the slide of a door panel made Ginko turn and remember time. Haruko had returned with Izumi in tow, each carrying a different dish and two sets of chopsticks. Adashino followed last, looking both exhausted and strangely pleased at the same time and carrying another large dish. The three deposited what they were carrying before all sitting down: Haruko to Ginko’s left, Izumi across from him, and Adashino to his right. They nodded, said their thanks, and began eating quietly. 

“Is there a good time to visit the village head?” Ginko asked after a length. While he would rather visit sooner than later, he didn’t want his hosts to feel too pressured.

Izumi nodded, chewing on a bit of vegetable. She swallowed and set her chopsticks down. “We can go after we’re done eating. I can take you, if you like. I have to run some medicine over to my mother, anyway, and she lives right down the same path.”

“That would be very helpful,” he thanked her. “I would appreciate that a lot.”

Adashino elbowed him, leaning over. “Why are you never this polite to me?” He kept his voice low, but frowned theatrically as he spoke. “Is it because I don’t cook this well? Or are my cheekbones not sharp enough for you?”

Ginko rolled his eye and didn’t dignify his friend with an answer. Adashino huffed and sat back up straight, hiding his false sulk in a sip of tea.

What he would never say was how dangerous it was to be familiar. To be too free with his kindness, too gentle. And so all things, even those dear, stayed at a distance.

After the meal was done, Haruko collected the teacups and carried them back into the other room. Adashino followed, much to Ginko’s surprise, his arms full of the used dishes. He was prattling animatedly about something or other to Haruko as he disappeared behind the door panel, and Ginko shook his head at it. He might miss that voice when at last it was time to part ways. It had become such a comfort, the thought of its loss was something he had not wanted to consider.

The mushi-shi stretched and walked back to his pack, pulling a scarf out and tying it around his face and forcing himself to discard his melancholy. He carried his pack out and shouldered it once he was on the porch, avoiding the impulse to breathe deeply as the cold, damp air hit his face. It was half a relief to him, but it did no favours to his white shirt; he should have pulled out a jacket, he thought.

Izumi came out shortly after, dressed up in many more layers than he. She passed him a dull green overcoat, which he took gratefully. After adjusting his outfit and picking up his pack, he followed Izumi wordlessly down the beaten trail into the village. Many things lay ahead, and he had already delayed too long.

#  🎋

In the end, it had taken very little to convince the village he ought to stay. That he could help, that he _would_ help. Ginko could see clearly the desperation in their eyes; without even saying, he knew they would give nearly anything to see the sky again. He didn’t want to ask that of them, though. He told them he would consider his price if and when he could keep his promise.

He hoped dearly that he could.

Ginko mulled as he walked over the answers he sought: how could he make the mushi leave? How could he guarantee it would not come back? Was there a way to drive it off elsewhere, or did he truly have to bring about its end?

He knew many things, but not one of them seemed to give him the answer to any of his questions. He wondered if anything would. Maybe he shouldn’t even be asking questions; maybe they were the wrong ones.

“Do you know of any spot the fog hasn’t touched?” He asked Izumi as they made their way back to her home, his voice muffled under his scarf. Whatever she’d needed to deliver, she had, and had been waiting for him after his own meeting.

The woman thought critically, her eyes―the only part of her visible through her layered outfit―darkening. “I don’t think so. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

Ginko considered this, wishing as he walked that he could smoke. He found himself tapping his fingers against the side of his leg instead. Adashino had always said he smoked too much, but Ginko had never seen it as a problem until he suddenly couldn’t.

“I see,” he sighed. He would be looking for a while, then, for any kind of hint to set his course.

Izumi shook her head. “I only walk between our home and the village, though. There may be something somewhere else. I just wouldn’t know.”

Haruko, neither, could offer anything. As the mushi-shi and Izumi removed their travellers’ wear and entered the house, she could only shake her head. “I wish I could suggest something to you. I’m sorry.”

Ginko dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “Don’t feel bad. It’s not incredibly important anyway. I just like to gather as much information as I can before I do any planning.”

She nodded, but still looked upset.

“We could look around and see if we find anything unusual? A fresh set of eyes, and whatnot?”

Ginko turned his head to Adashino, who was fiddling with several sets of strings as he sat on the tatami floor, multiples of coloured threads wrapped around his injured fingers. There was a small cut of wood, shaped like a circle with notches in it, that guided where the threads fell. His damaged fingers were still somehow deft, folding each thread with certainty and care.

Adashino shook his head, tiling his chin back and looking at the ceiling. “I can’t sit here _all_ day, Ginko, I’m not made to be idle.” The little flowers in his hair bobbed. “I came with you for a reason, _please_ take me with you.”

There was a childish plea to his words, but a sincere interest in his eyes. Ginko bit his tongue and frowned. “I don’t think it’s wise.”

“Haruko might kick us out if I keep this up, though!” Adashino nodded down to his lap, to the half-dozen small strings he was weaving in his fingers and the long tail he tied them into. “I’ve made a tiny _obijime_ this morning, but it’s so ugly it’s a total loss. This second one isn’t much better. It might fit a doll,” he added, frowning down at his work. “I’m just bothering her, really.”

Ginko looked down at the half-finished braid Adashino nodded at, at how clean each knot was and how seamlessly the colours wove together. Though it was small, it was consistent and each weave was practiced. He looked over at Haruko.

She shrugged. “He wanted to try, and I have commissions to fill.” She giggled. “He’s actually very good; better than I was when I started learning _kumihimo_. He could be a great weaver, if ever he wants to stop being a doctor.”

Adashino scowled up at her from where he sat, but it was completely without threat in it. He wrinkled his nose at her.

Haruko clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh! _Sorry_ ,” she mumbled through her fingers, and then laughed again. “He’s… absolutely terrible, Ginko, beyond tutelage. I have to undo the work he’s helped me with, please take Adashino with you. I can’t have him making more terrible _obijime_ today.” She looked down at Adashino, but there was only fondness in her stare― perhaps something a tad conspiratorial, but she said nothing more. The doctor looked back at her, a very slight upwards tilt pulling at his lips, that same look in his eyes.

Ginko shook his head.

_Keep everything at a distance._

Though normally he might go alone, the mushi-shi found himself looking between Adashino and Haruko and wondering if he actually _should_ bring his friend along. They’d been travelling for a week since Tanyuu’s, and nothing of interest had cropped up until this… and the fog was not as dangerous as other mushi he had come across. There was something unsettling in it, but not inherently malicious.

The more he thought, the more Ginko considered that Adashino may not be terrible company. Something about being alone in the fog suddenly bothered him, something in the silence of it, perhaps.

He looked at Haruko, at the gentle goad she was offering. He looked then at Adashino, and the softness in his eyes.

“...fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🎋 _kumihimo_ is a kind of weaving technique, usually used to make cords and things or decorative ropes. 
> 
>   
> (I just want to say one of my favourite parts of writing this fic was doing the _very_ first section of this chapter. It's written in direct contrast/compliment to the first part of Chapter 6, lmk if you noticed that was done on purpose)
> 
> ~~(...lastly, I do have the next chapter completely done so I might just... be very easily pressured into putting it up... perhaps pressured by myself but who knows certainly not me)~~  
>  (as well if anyone wants to [ chat on tumblr please send me a message](http://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com)!!!!! )


	9. Price of an Outcome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If light is love, then fear is its shadow.” ― L.J. Vanier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ask and ye shall receive ~~(I'm such a pushover who am I kidding)~~
> 
> how do you say dévoilement in English. that is what this chapter is... some sort of unfortunate, spiritual dévoilement. (google tells me the word I want is unveiling, maybe; still doesn't quite hit it but... I tried)  
>   
>    
> This one is longer than previous chapters. Please enjoy responsibly!

  
  


Once they’d finished their noon meal, the two dressed themselves for the trek and made their way along the road and back towards the town.

“Is there anything you’re hoping to find?”

Ginko shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Ever the wordsmith,” Adashino sighed underneath the scarf he’d been lent. “You’re looking for clues, right? This mushi doesn’t like heat or light, so is there something you expect to find out here involving that?”

“It dislikes _dry_ heat,” Ginko corrected gently. It was starting to warm up, but the moisture of spring allowed the mushi to stay despite the temperature. The village had already noticed that fire was an excellent way to drive it away... But lighting the entire valley on fire was nigh impossible without more danger than was already present. It was far too reckless, besides. There had to be some other option, and Ginko would find it.

“Right.” Adashino nodded. He didn’t sound like he cared for the correction. “So you know that much. Are you looking for something that proves it, or something that disproves what you know? Or neither?”

Again, all Ginko could do was shrug. He wasn’t a scholar. “I’m not sure. It will depend on what I find, if I find anything.” 

“That’s not terribly scientific of you, Ginko,” Adashino chided, “one should always have questions in mind before they search for answers.”

Adashino snorted, then, falling silent when Ginko didn’t argue back. He seemed to be enjoying himself as he walked, but was keeping his injured hands safely at his sides, fingers folded over his palms carefully. His eyes, however, had that strange, reckless light in them that set something dark in Ginko’s chest. It was something he could not allow himself to think about for too long. He moved his stare to the road instead.

“I rather like this sort of puzzle… there may not even _be_ a solution,” the doctor considered. He moved one of his damaged hands to tap his chin, but upon remembering he wore a scarf over his face he dropped his fingers back to his side. “There’s no true methodology, either, no guidelines to follow here. This is almost more interesting than medicine.”

“It can be far more dangerous, too,” Ginko warned.

“Danger is relative,” the doctor answered; entirely too predictable. Ginko was sure there was a wry smile under his scarf. “Sometimes an outcome can be worth the harm.”

Ginko wondered about the levies of universe, and the cruel balance it played at so easily. It gave and took without discrimination, and there was a hurt in that even if it was never intentional. _Things are simply as they are._ Maybe Adashino understood more than Ginko thought.

They wandered for a long while together, despite how Ginko could distinctly recall Adashino suggesting to split up before. Somehow, the doctor did not suggest it a second time once they were outside. Ginko wondered if he should mention it―it would save them time―but eventually decided to cast the idea aside. It was an idle walk they shared, one that was so very different from their usual destination-led travels. Ginko almost liked it, the way time felt slower like this.

“...Haruko has been weaving for over twenty years,” Adashino was saying, completely unaware of whether or not Ginko was paying attention to him. Whatever he had been mentioning prior had fallen on deaf ears. The mushi-shi tilted his head, deciding he should start to listen at some point, rather than simply become lost in the sound of Adashino’s voice.

“Twenty years?” Ginko thought about Haruko’s small hands, her thin fingers, and how suited they would be for such a craft. And how perfectly those same fingers had been woven between those of her wife while they had slept. He looked down at his own hands briefly, at the spaces between them that suddenly seemed so empty. If there were fingers meant to slot perfectly between his that way, he would never know. All he knew was the feel of a cigarette.

“She and Izumi met when Izumi had been looking for a new tie for her father’s _haori_ for his birthday,” Adashino went on, “and she just kept coming back to look more and more, even though she had only ever needed one.”

“That’s rather sweet,” Ginko said absently. The tale _was_ rather sweet, but he found himself distracted as he thought about his fingers again. About how empty they were, had always been. How had he never noticed before?

“Haruko makes tapestry too,” the doctor chimed, “it’s very lovely. It almost makes me wish I had picked up a useful domestic skill like that…”

Ginko had never pictured Adashino as the kind to be domestic or to to settle down; it was almost strange to think about. He had never seen his friend as one to _want_ a life like that, either. He was so vibrant and unpredictable, the very idea the man would offer his heart and life to stability, to someone to keep... it seemed impossible.

And yet the flowers he wore told nothing but the truth of the matter, no matter how odd it seemed to be.

“Adashino?”

His friend jumped, eyes startling wide for a moment. The tops of his cheeks were unusually red, even through the grey of the fog. “Yes?” The little blue flowers in his head swayed, save the one that was wilting behind his left ear. One of the petals fell, dissolving. 

Ginko wondered again if he should tell Adashino. 

He once again decided he wouldn’t.

Ginko shook his head. “Never mind. Keep going.”

Adashino frowned at him, the motion visible by the pinch of his eyebrows though his mouth was covered. “Okay... Forget weaving, since you seem bored by it. Have you ever heard of the islands of the _Galapagos_?”

The conversation was one-sided, but through the quiet of the mist Ginko was pleased to listen to his friend describe the odd, European-claimed islands. The mushi-shi was not sure he understood why Adashino had chosen the topic in particular to speak of, so far off from what he had been mentioning… but the doctor spoke so vibrantly Ginko couldn’t deny him the chance to elaborate. But there was the light in his eyes that Ginko found stole his breath; he wanted to look, wanted to feel helpless for a moment, but found himself turning away instead.

It had felt so easy, until suddenly it wasn’t.

Why did it suddenly hurt to look? He refused to think about it.

He couldn’t afford to.

Distracted by his own words, stringing tales of birds and tortoises and the colours of the sea, Adashino stumbled as they made their way up the east side of the valley. He laughed, but his feet strayed. Ginko, distracted by his thoughts, moved too slow.

There was nothing that could be done.

Ginko saw it happen too late: Adashino’s foot faltering on the edge of the trail― the doctor looking in the other direction― his leg buckling suddenly as the ground crumbled― his hands grasping, reaching only air― his body twisting to follow― his eyes wide, _impossibly_ wide―

Ginko yelled, he reached, but Adashino’s damaged fingers came nowhere near his own. He was there, and then he wasn’t, swallowed by the earth that had fallen away under his step.

He was never meant to have fingers through his, it seemed.

The mushi-shi didn’t think; he cast himself down the side of the steep drop, legs moving on their ow.

He followed blindly, so blindly. The fall was sharp, steep, his shoes sliding and losing purchase the moment they touched the raw edge of the earth and rock. The world rushed by, far too fast. One of his legs caught against something and he was sent tumbling violently. His shoulder collided with something else, and the breath he had left was knocked from his ribs. The world spun around him; his nose hit the ground and something cracked. 

Everything went black for a moment.

His body finally stopped moving, but for a moment Ginko felt as though he were still falling as he came back to awares. It was slow, like moving through tar.

Ginko hauled himself to his hands and knees, breathless and unsteady. His limbs protested, a dull ache grasping every bone in his body. “Ada…” he tried, hoarse. “Adashino…?” His voice was weak, the scarf still over his face and muffling his words. His shoulder ached. His eye was watering. His face felt sticky with blood. Everything was spinning.

There was no answer. A cold horror began to fill Ginko’s spine. The silence that surrounded him was incredibly deafening. He was very aware of thrum of his own heart in his ears, uneven and incredibly fast. His own pulse, pressing hard into his throat.

The silence of the fog made him so very afraid.

_You should have kept your distance. Keep everything at a distance._

“Adashino?” He tried again, though his chest was incredibly tight.

There was no answer. Only a soft wind, stirring leaves.

Ginko closed his eye and ground his teeth together, his fingers digging into the earth and jamming dirt under his fingernails. He felt his body begin to shake. Emotion fought in his ribs against the cage he’d always placed it in. _Please._ What a stupid thing to have had happen. _Oh gods._ What a terrible way… _Please._ He swallowed, his shoulders shaking. 

He felt incredibly lost.

“ _Adashino_?” 

There was something in him that had known this could happen, had only been waiting for _when._ It felt like poison, the knowledge that he had ignored himself. And for what? What had he gained? The universe didn’t care. The universe didn’t care at all.

There was a moment of nothingness.

A groan, weak, fell through the wind.

Ginko sat up, and the world spun. “Adashino?” His voice cracked. He hoped the scarf hid it, the fog ate it. The forest was so dark, he saw only greys and greens.

“ _Ginko…_?” 

He knew that voice, he knew it too well. Ginko’s entire body went limp in relief at the sound of it, of the sound of his name. It was forgiveness, mercy like water to his wounds. He fell against the ground again, breath leaving his lungs. He ignored how blurry the world was; he didn’t care.

“Are you injured?” The mushi-shi asked. 

“You told me… I don’t… learn… by listening...” came the response, and then a harsh cough.

Ginko smiled at the optimism, still dizzy. He wasn’t sure if it was from the fall or the relief that Adashino was alright; he refused to grant himself the chance to think about it. “Can you stand...? Where are you?”

“Where are _you_?”

Ginko let out a thin laugh and rolled onto his back, vines tangling into his fingers and hair. “Nothing’s broken,” he told his friend. His shoulder hurt, but it was only a bruise. He felt an ache in his left leg, and in his head, but both were dull. 

There was an ache in his chest, too, but he didn’t think about it.

Ginko pushed himself up and staggered to a stand, leaning heavily on a nearby tree as he tried to re-center himself. Everything seemed to blur together for a moment. Stumbling forward, he called out again.

“I’m over here,” Adashino responded, off to his right. Ginko turned towards the sound, so familiar, the tone of his friend’s voice.

“You’re impossible,” he scolded. But he was relieved, above all else, and it was hard to fight the feeling.

He could see through the foliage the top of Adashino’s head, and all the dark hair that stood out at wild angles. The blue flowers stood as vibrant contrast. There was blood at one of his temples, visible as he turned towards Ginko, running its way all the way down the side of his face and onto the scarf that sat lumped about his cheeks. All the colours seemed horribly sharp. Ginko’s ears were ringing.

“Tah dah,” the doctor waved his fingers at Ginko, revealing his injured hands― now caked in mud and fresh blood, but he didn’t seem to notice. “One piece. I’m in one piece.”

Ginko placed one of his own hands atop his face, ignoring how mud stuck into his hair. “You’re far too reckless.” He wanted to cry. Why did he want to cry?

“I’m alive.” There was a grin in Adashino’s voice, albeit weak. He tilted his head. “You have two eyes, though― should I be concerned? Two noses, too.”

The mushi-shi shook his head, and once again the world around him spun ever so slightly. “You asked to be the doctor on-call,” he sighed. He fell to his knees, the earth reverberating up his spine. Everything felt so heavy.

“So it would seem I got my wish.” Adashino’s eyebrows pinched then, and he looked away from Ginko. “I do think I hit my head quite hard, though. I was joking about the double vision― things are actually very clear.” As he turned, blue petals fell from his hair, falling into the folds of his scarf.

“Clear?” Ginko asked. Adashino was clear in front of him, he thought dimly. So clear, so sharp...

The doctor nodded. More petals fell. They were _so_ blue. “The fog…” His injured fingers searched the ground for something to hold, settling eventually as the doctor pushed himself up. “There’s no fog, right?”

Ginko blinked. “No fog?” He looked up at Adashino, at how the foliage around him was blurred. How the leaves overhead ran together. But the air felt light, so terribly light. And Adashino was distinct, sharp in his vision.

“Ginko, you’re bleeding.” 

Fingers pulled at the scarf around his face before he could protest, and Ginko felt half the fabric cling desperately to his face, wet and warm and sticky. 

_Oh_ , he thought. A thumb rubbed at the corner of his eye, and the world came back into focus.

“I think you broke your nose.” 

Adashino sounded so calm about it, Ginko thought. He didn’t say anything in return. He counted the beats of his heart in his ears, far too fast. There was a ringing, too.

“That’s a shame,” the doctor sighed. “I always did like your nose; it had such a strong profile. Can you breathe okay?”

Ginko nodded. He hadn’t thought about whether or not he could breathe, not until Adashino asked. But he could. If he couldn’t, it had little to do with his nose. 

“I’ll reset it later, if you want; it’s a little crooked.” Adashino bobbed his head, dark eyes fixed at the centre of Ginko’s face. He did not touch, but he moved around Ginko in an irregular way, tilting his head. “Your septum looks okay, which is what’s really important. I think it should heal fine.”

Ginko hardly registered what his friend said. There was so much blood on Adashino’s face. “And you?”

“Oh, I’ll recover fine. There are plenty of other noses in the world, Ginko, don’t think yours is so special.”

Ginko pinched his eyebrows. His ears were still ringing. “I meant―”

“I know what you meant,” Adashino cut him off with a wave of one of his hands. “I’m fine. I look worse than I feel. My hands are worse for wear, but I landed on my back.” He turned his head away, over his shoulder, and Ginko caught half a flinch on his eyebrows. “Anyway, I think I found what you were looking for.”

Ginko followed his stare, followed the line of clear air and bright green leaves. Of small mushi floating by, ones that he had not seen in well over a day. Of others, poking up through the undergrowth. He opened his mouth to speak, but words escaped him.

How had he not noticed?

Soundlessly, the two made their way forwards, stumbling through the undergrowth and jagged ground and leaving the rockface behind them. They came slowly into a break in the tree-line, revealing open sky. As it ended, the pair stopped shoulder-to-shoulder to stare ahead at the sight before them. And it was clear, stark, sight, not a hint of mist about it.

How odd.

Adashino was the first to speak, finally pulling his scarf down. His voice was awestruck, almost weak. “The tree looks like a _kodama,_ nearly…”

He was surprised that Adashino would say such a thing of the tree before him, something so rooted in belief and not in the concrete world. And yet he spoke it with great seriousness, so taken by the sight before them. Ginko traced the lines of his face, finding he’d never taken the time to look before. He… almost liked those lines, he thought dimly.

Adashino frowned at Ginko and gestured at the tree, his injured palms so very red against the green of the clearing. “Don’t look at me like that. This place has a strange feeling, Ginko.”

 _Look at you like_ what _?_

Ginko snapped his eye away and turned to look where he was expected to be looking. The world spun as he squared himself, wobbling.

It was a small clearing with a large, blackened tree in the middle.

There was no mist. None at all.

The mushi-shi stepped forward mechanically, shaking off the dizziness that followed. The thought Adashino spoke never would have occurred to him had he been alone; there were strange things here, but nothing too amiss. Certainly not a _kodama_. 

The clearing was silent, and when he ignored how his ears rang, it was oddly so... There were a few small mushi floating about in the air, but all else was immobile, as though frozen in awe of the lone tree in the middle. But it was nothing that sent any chill down his spine, or gave him pause to question. Ginko took another step forward, and Adashino’s hand was suddenly on his wrist. He stilled.

The touch was impossibly warm. Scalding, sticky with blood. He wondered if his skin was burnt with the imprint of Adashino’s fingers; he didn’t dare look down to see.

“Even if it’s not supernatural, you shouldn’t get too close.” The other man’s voice had a warning in it, one Ginko was not used to hearing. “It’s been hit by lightning, and more than once. The branches are brittle.”

Ginko’s tongue felt heavy, his throat tight like he had swallowed sand. The only thing he could feel was Adashino’s hand on his wrist, the pressure against his skin. The heartbeat beneath it, pressed to his own and far, far too quick. He nodded, and turned his gaze to the tree. 

There was something unspoken that passed between them, something Ginko did not want to think about.

Adashino’s fingers fell away. Ginko felt himself shiver.

He turned his eye to the tree, frowning as he frowned up at it. He stayed where he was, cataloguing it only by sight: It was completely black, and a soft gust of wind made it groan loudly. The branches were large, they were heavy. They were very close to breaking. The tree towered over all else, looming like a great blotch of ink against the green blanket of the forest around it. It seemed out of place.

But there _was_ something about it. Something.

Something in the clarity around it, the openness.

Wait, why was he standing here?

Ginko thought about the rest of the valley, how dark it was. He liked where he was standing. It was blue, it was green. He thought of the blood at Adashino’s temple, so red. Ginko took a deep breath and held it as he considered.

“I’m… missing something…” he mumbled. He felt very dizzy.

“ _Kodama,_ ” Adashino jibed. “It scared all the mushi away from the tree.”

_Away._

Ginko whipped around, staggering for a moment as he regained his balance. The sky spun overhead, white and blue and blue again. “What?”

Adashino swallowed, his face startled and eyes wide. He took the sleeve of his yukata and rubbed it against the corner of his eye, where the blood was making him squint. “A… _kodama?_ ” He repeated, slower. He gestured at the tree again. “It… frightened the mushi away?” The few tiny flowers at his temple swayed in the mess of his dark hair. “It was a joke, Ginko, _obviously_ a spirit doesn’t live in the tree―”

“ _No_!” The mushi-shi closed the distance between them, his hands moving on their own. He clapped his friend on the shoulders. “That’s _exactly_ it!” He dug his fingers into Adashino’s yukata, leaving smears of dirt on the fabric. 

Something _had_ driven the mist away, something _had_ resided in that tree. 

Ginko felt his heart press against his ribs.

_Something._

“I, ah… I’m not sure I follow,” the doctor said to him. He catalogued his friend’s expression in an effort to understand, brows drawing down. His eyes were so deep, Ginko could drown in them as they ran lines across his face, seeking purchase. Adashino opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it soundlessly.

There was so much blood on his face, Ginko thought.

How many things had he let Adashino fall into like this? How much harm, and for what?

This was not the first time, nor would it be the last.

A flower in Adashino’s hair drooped, growing dark.

Something broke.

The feeling hit Ginko like a brick, and he pulled his hands away from Adashino the moment it came over him; he had stood there far too long. There was something waiting beyond the pause that shared, something he was never meant to know. 

But he’d given it a moment, and that was all it had needed.

He swallowed it down, tripping over himself, and the way his pulse beat hard against his ringing eardrums. Far faster than he should have, Ginko pulled his scarf over his mouth and turned away, dizzy. He’d given a home too freely to something too potent, and it should never have been allowed to let it nest. He turned away from Adashino without direction, two steps ahead of himself and leaving his breath behind.

“Hey, Ginko! What is it? Ginko! Wait!” 

Adashino’s footsteps followed after him, staggered but soft on the foliage underfoot. Ginko closed his eye and wondered if the doctor had seen it, too, felt it like he had. Had been burned, too. If he was afraid of it, as he should be. But if he had seen it, had known it, he said nothing― Adashino only traced his steps, loyal as always, as the mushi-shi retreated back into the trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🎋 A _haori_ is a type of jacket, once considered formalwear, that is tied with kumihimo ropes.  
> 🎋 _Kodama_ is a sort of spirit that usually resides within trees; they can be kind or malicious, and it's rumoured if you cut a kodama-tree, it will bleed.
> 
>  _(gasp) oh no we have feelings, folks  
> _  
>  5 points to anyone who can guess where I originally wanted to end this chapter and then decided to be nice about it
> 
> also if anyone wants to [ chat on tumblr please send me a message](http://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com)... i would love to chat!!!


	10. All the Excess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.  
> You leave the same impression  
> Of something beautiful, but annihilating.”  
> ― Sylvia Plath, _Ariel: The Restored Edition_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone is hanging in there; this chapter is longer than I wanted so that might be why I'm Done with it, but also... life is backwards right now. I love you all and all your comments, messages, kudos. I'm truly so happy to offer this fic to you, I'm glad it's being enjoyed!!  
>  ~~~~  
> (also the emoji formatting is finally fixed look at who learned new parts of HTML that I didn't know 10 years ago)

The mushi-shi was often a distant man, sparse with his words and sparser still with his touch. Adashino had always known him to be that way― _careful._ Guarded, mindful of each word and where he placed it. But through it all, his posture was always open, his gaze focussed and kind.

But as the pair staggered back along the road, Adashino was feeling more and more as though a ghost stood before him in place of a man. He kept frowning at his hands, turning them over and over again, as though he were looking for something that wasn’t there. His expression was vacant, tired, in a way that made the doctor ache with a pain he wasn’t sure he could describe.

Why did he look like that?

Adashinso sighed loudly, catching a taste of blood on his tongue. His lower lip was torn clean through, but something about it hurt far less than the ache deep in his chest. He had so many things to say, but eventually settled on, “I’m sorry, Ginko.” 

At that, his friend looked over at him. “For what?”

Adashino shrugged. There was a pang in his upper back; he ignored it. “For everything. For causing trouble. For falling. I don’t know.”

Ginko shook his head, curt. “It’s fine.”

His shoulders were so terribly tight.

Adashino wanted to tell him how much it _wasn’t_ fine, but that would never be enough. What could he say when his heart was like a great stone in his chest, weighted with a mistake he could not even quantify? He kept cataloguing moments over and over in his head, trying to decide where things had strayed. Where his own fault lay. Had it been when he’d fallen? When Ginko had let him touch his face, sticky with blood? Had it been when the man had seen something, heard something, eye wide as he’d spun around? Or maybe yet when his fingers had pressed bruises into Adashino’s shoulders, hot enough to burn.

Perhaps it had simply been when that look had settled in his eye, crossed his face, and he’d turned away. Maybe that was where everything had gone wrong.

Adashino hung his head, defeated.

Their silence stretched until they arrived back at their destination, the now-familiar home with a small, faded signpost out front. The mushi-shi stepped in front of his friend and up onto the porch of the home, wordless. Three quick knocks and he slid the door open, casting his shoes off and making his way inside. Adashino watched how his feet dragged, heavy. The crackle of the fire greeted them both from a distance.

The doctor lingered outside, staring down at his sandaled feet. They were covered in mud and scrapes. He felt like such a fool. 

“Adashino! Come inside!”

Haruko’s voice made him jump, and he moved automatically. No sooner was he inside than he was able to see the two women fussing over Ginko’s face, over the mud in his white hair and the blood smeared across his cheeks. 

Adashino thought distantly of a time he had been as they had, a time where his heart had been able to stay in its proper place. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Seeing him, both of the women stopped what they were doing and balked, hands falling to their sides. Ginko turned slowly, absently, following their stares.

“What did you two even _do_?” Izumi scolded them, eyes passing rapid-fire between the pair. “Did you fight a boar or something?” 

Adashino laughed, pulling his scarf down and fighting a wince. There was an energy he forced to his words he didn’t feel at all. “I fell, but Ginko rescued me.” He didn’t want them to worry. “But we found what we were looking for, after all of that.”

Izumi frowned at him, as did Haruko. “What happened?”

“I... the fog...” Ginko said slowly, ignoring the question. His voice was terribly tired-sounding, stumbling over easy syllables. The two women turned back to him. He shrugged off the overcoat he’d been wearing, letting it pool on the floor. “I think...” he trailed off, as though he’d completely forgotten what he was about to say. He stared down at his jacket.

Adashino thought of the tree they’d seen, of the clearing they’d stood in. How there had been something silent about it, something strange and forbidden. How Ginko’s hands had dug into his shoulders, his eye bright with euphoria, so much light within it that it had burned to look at.

And then he had looked away, as though wounded.

Adashino stared down at his bare feet again, closing his fingers into his palms and flinching. Surely it had nothing to do with him, that look. That look he’d sworn he’d never let Ginko wear, the one that was like a knife in his lungs.

He kept telling himself words he did not believe. It didn’t help.

The spots where Ginko’s fingers had pressed against his shoulders burned. They left stains on his yukata, lightning under his skin.

Adashino pushed the heel of his palm into his cheek. Everything ached from his fall, but he was trying desperately not to think about it as he tried and failed to not think of other things as well. It was all too much. His chest hurt most of all. It was probably a bruised rib, though. 

“Is there somewhere I can clean up?” He asked. He hated the idea of staying in this room, with its hot fire and his own guilt. Worry still ate at him, though the moment of danger had long passed.

Izumi was speaking with Ginko, tone low and hurried. Ginko didn’t seem to notice, his eye fixated on some distant point on the far wall. Izumi had a hand on his cheek, holding his face in worry. Adashino felt dizzy simply looking, seeing a familiarity in her fingers he’d never allowed himself to show. His face was hot with anger at his own cowardice. He looked away, his throat tight. He was so, so stupid.

He wondered if he should speak louder, ask again, but Haruko crossed into his field of view. “I have a wash basin in one of the other rooms. Come on.” She tugged on his sleeve. “Izumi will look after Ginko until you get back, don’t worry.” 

Adashino gave in, boneless, dragging himself behind her.

Haruko pulled him towards a small washbasin, set out beside some towels along one wall in an adjoining room. Their home had three rooms, and this one was normally their personal space. The walls had tapestries hung on them, and Adashino knew from the morning that the panels along the walls hid a storage space with many threads, a small loom, and spare blankets. He cast a glance at where one of the panels was half-open, threads tumbling out to be sorted, and then turned back towards the basin. He knelt before it, sticking his hands into the water. It was warm, of course, but something about it was still soothing to his injured palms.

“You look terrible, if I can say so,” Haruko told him. There was a soft concern in her eyes. She knelt down beside him and pulled a small towel onto her lap. “How far did you fall?”

Adashino shrugged. “More than I expected.” He remembered a lot of air. The ground had been there, and suddenly it hadn’t been. “Pretty far, I guess.” He closed his eyes for a moment and tried not to think at all.

She sighed. “I’m glad you’re okay, after all that. There are landslides around here sometimes, and they can be quite bad. I’m sure Ginko is glad you’re okay, too.”

Adashino laughed at what she said, but it came out choked. “I’m always such a nuisance.” _If he’d gone alone, we’d both be far more okay than this._ He felt sick to think about it. 

Haruko passed him a towel, which he proceeded to dip into the washbasin before pressing it against his cheek. He scrubbed until he felt blood come away, and then rinsed the cloth and repeated, working his way up his jaw towards his temple. It was still bleeding fairly freely, but wounds to the head always did.

“Are you glad you went, though? You found something, after all. Or would you rather have stayed behind to help me with _kumihimo_?”

Adashino paused for a moment, considering her question: He _had_ been glad to be with Ginko, glad he had been along. But he thought of Ginko’s posture as they’d walked back, and it gave him pause. “I’m not sure,” he said. He let his head drop. “I’m just glad Ginko only broke his nose, and nothing else worse.” What was the harm? What was the outcome?

“He has a good doctor on hand to fix it, at least,” Haruko consoled.

Adashino resumed scrubbing his temple, picking bits of leaves out of his hair as he went. He could only shrug. “Don’t say that; you don’t even know if I’m a good doctor or not.” He’d talked to her that morning about patients, but she’d never seen him work. They’d only known each other for a day, after all.

Haruko smiled in return, her eyes soft. “It doesn’t matter. You care for him, and sometimes that’s enough.”

For a moment, Adashino heard a whisper of an old conversation, of a chilly evening on a creaking porch. He remembered the taste of sake, of an openness he had run away with. His heart stilled inside his ribs, and he felt very cold.

He looked down at the washbasin. “Don’t be so childish.” Adashino didn’t think about how the woman had read him like a book, had seen his heart without trying. It reminded him of Tanyuu. “Feelings don’t make hands steady.”

Haruko laughed gently and pushed herself up from her knees. If she had been hurt by what he’d said, she didn’t show it. “If you need stitches in your temple or your lip, I would be more than happy to help. Come back out when you’re done, and we can get you set up.”

Adashino nodded, mute. There was a lump in his throat he could not swallow away. He stared down at his own reflection in the washbasin, and saw nothing but tired eyes and a mess of dark hair. A lip split in two, half his face covered in blood. His one eye was swollen, turning a purple that was visible even in the dim, gentle light. _Had_ the harm been worth the outcome? He thought of that look in Ginko’s eye, of the curl of his lips and the worry on his brow. He didn’t want to think about it, suddenly. What a stupid question to ask.

Part of him had hoped to see something more in his own reflection in the water, though Adashino wasn’t sure exactly what. Just… _more_. He had only ever been himself, of course.

Haruko had told him that he was enough, a kindness in her voice, she had said that his love was enough. He wondered if he should tell her she was wrong.

#  🎋

Adashino was surprised to know that Ginko carried most of what he needed in his pack to clean up, tucked away behind a myriad of other strange things. He wanted to ask, the thought of why those things were there a tad concerning, but he swallowed it down. Ginko had always said what he did was dangerous at best, but somehow seeing supplies meant for bracing broken bones, stitching skin… it made it real. It made his head spin.

Haruko and Izumi watched Adashino nervously as he stitched his own temple in front of a small hand-mirror. It was _his own_ fault, after all; he refused their offer of help. The wound was the length of one of his fingers, and it felt like an age to finally close it and tie the last suture. It was bleeding so much it was getting difficult to see; head wounds always did that, even shallow ones. Adashino wished he could drink away the sharpness, that he could ignore the pinch and pull of the catgut and needle, but of course that would make his hands wobble worse than they already were. He’d never been a dignified drunk.

He thought once more of a night on a porch, of parchment and ink.

His lip was far quicker, two stitches and done. Crooked, perhaps, but done.

Ginko sat, impassive and silent, off to one corner as Adashino cleaned himself up. He’d cracked the door and was smoking, his head tilted out into the space where the heat of the home leaked outside. Adashino wanted to scold him, to tell him it was inconsiderate to their hosts, but he reconsidered when he thought of how much the man had been through in the last several hours. He’d more than earned a cigarette.

Even without the fall, he’d earned it.

He wondered distantly what Ginko had come up with, what thoughts were in his head. What he’d heard when his entire body had whipped around, eye wide. What he’d seen in that tree, in the clearing, in the openness of the sky.

Surely he knew what could be done for this place.

“How are you feeling?”

It was a stupid question, but Adashino could think of nothing else to ask. Ginko’s shirt was transparent from perspiration, and the collar was stained red from his bleeding nose. His eye was unfocussed, lid half-closed. The hollows under his eye-sockets were purpling, a bruise blooming from his injured nose and patchworked across his face. He looked pained and weary, incredibly still.

“Hm?” Ginko looked over at him, ash falling off of the end of his cigarette.

“Should I reset your nose?” 

Ginko looked at the floor. “If you want.”

“It’s not as painful as ribs,” Adashino consoled, thinking of how they’d met, though he knew the hesitation in Ginko’s voice was not from apprehension. “You shouldn’t worry― I’m the best doctor in this house, after all.” His split lip protested against the grin he offered. “Although if you have opium hidden in your backpack, now may not be a bad time to let me know.”

Ginko shook his head, and then immediately put the heel of one his palms up to his temple, leaning into it. “No, I’m afraid not.” He grimaced.

Adashino squatted down in front of him, tilting his head. “Are you dizzy?”

The mushi-shi flicked what was left of his cigarette outside, and Adashino heard it hiss as it fell through the mist, burning out. “I hit my head,” Ginko muttered. “It’ll pass.”

Adashino settled back and sat himself, splaying one leg out and keeping one tucked up. His juban stuck uncomfortably to his skin. “You’ll let me know if it doesn’t.” It wasn’t a question.

The mushi-shi just fixed his eye on the floor. It was unsteady, absent and dilated. “It’s probably nothing.”

“It’s not _nothing_ , you stupid mushi-shi.” He hid his worry, biting it down. He wanted to press, but he could see the exhaustion in his friend’s expression. It wouldn’t work. “Ginko, why would you have a doctor with you if you’re not even going to listen to him?”

Ginko put his hand back up to his face, wincing, and leaned back against the wall. “He’s an oddly persistent guy, my physician,” he mumbled. “It doesn’t matter whether or not I listen, he’d do what he wanted anyway.” 

Adashino wasn’t sure how Ginko meant his words to be taken, but he flinched at them. He knew the expression he wore, glad the other man wasn’t looking. He swallowed. There was a sour taste on his tongue that wouldn’t leave.

“Well, I’m… I’m going to set your nose now.” His voice wobbled.

“Okay.”

He tried not to think. It hurt, to think.

Ginko sat still, and Adashino’s hands were steady. They wanted to shake, they wanted to stray, but the doctor kept his focus tight and impersonal, heat hiding along the back of his neck and the tips of his ears. He focussed on the way Ginko’s nose felt under his touch, and nothing more; the feeling of cartilage snapping back into place, bone aligning.

It felt like an age, stretched in time. A lifetime may have passed in the spaces of seconds.

Adashino only did what he had said he would, and then dropped his hands. He set aside the make-do chopstick he’d been using to check the inside alignment on the of Ginko’s nose, and focussed on lining it up parallel to the edge of the tray Haruko had brought him earlier. 

“We’ll both be snorers, now,” he muttered. His chest hurt. He hated the absence in Ginko’s eye, the way he didn’t flinch when Adashino knew he should. He picked up a piece of fluffed cotton from the tray, and began rolling it into a tight tube. He frowned down at his fingers as he worked.

His thumbs were desperate to trace lines, fingers wanting to push hair back and lips wanting nothing more than to press against the other man’s head in comfort, but of course none of it was warranted. It would be the opposite, of course.

_He’d do what he wanted anyway._

_Well maybe I won’t,_ Adashino thought petulantly. What did Ginko know, anyway?

Adashino scowled, his face hot.

Ginko didn’t say anything more, but tilted his head back and closed his eye as Adashino pressed his fingers onto his forehead. The mushi-shi had been silent the entire time, and didn’t seem to want to change.

“Hold your breath, please,” Adashino said, wrinkling his own nose as he inserted the cotton into a nostril. He pushed it into place and then adjusted it, one hand pinched on the bridge of Ginko’s nose. The other man didn’t so much as wince.

“Done.” He dropped his fingers. He didn’t want to.

“Thanks,” Ginko answered distantly, opening his eye.

“Now, rest. Tomorrow you can tell us your master plan.”

Ginko’s eye met his. His white eyebrows drew down, his lips following. “Master plan?”

Adashino opened his mouth to speak, but his tongue felt far too heavy. “About the…” _Was there a plan?_ The thought was intrusive, heavy, something Adashino had not expected. Worry chewed his throat, a worry he hadn’t thought to have before. “About the mushi. You know, the whole reason we were out there?”

Ginko just stared. “Mushi?”

 _Oh, gods_.

Adashino swallowed his concern, deciding he wouldn’t push. He just needed… rest. Rest, of course. 

“I’m going to go for a walk,” the doctor announced quickly, and forced himself to stand. “Please try and rest, but don’t fall asleep just yet. We’ll talk later.”

Ginko only nodded, his eye focussing and unfocussing on Adashino’s face. He looked so very far away. “Okay.”

The few inches between them may have been a canyon.

Adashino wanted to smile and pretend it was okay, but something in the very idea of it hurt. The very idea of continuing to push, to speak, to insist. Words kept tumbling through his head, but never once made it to his tongue. In this fog he found the opposite of himself: It was so silent, Adashino felt he might become lost. He wouldn’t mind, he thought. He wished dearly the words in his head could be lost, as well. 

_It doesn’t matter whether or not I listen, he’d do what he wanted anyway._

Adashino’s mouth went dry.

What did _Ginko_ want?

The doctor turned back over his shoulder, and though it hurt, he knew he should ask. He was afraid of the answer, but it wasn’t his right to be fearful. It wasn’t his place to decide what his friend wanted or needed, and it never had been.

He’d invited himself, once they’d left Tanyuu’s, and he’d overstepped without realising it. He should have known better.

Ginko had always come and gone, his whims never up to anyone else. The man would show up, stay for a few days―more often less―and then move on. He never stayed for long, never stopped forever, never drew close enough to touch or to feel. He was like the wind, like the sea, and it would be so unfair for Adashino to try to capture that for his own and to place it in the bottle of his heart. Ginko had never been meant to be catalogued or listed, to sit on a shelf and gather dust, to be considered like some curiosity to be claimed. It was almost a cruelty that Adashino had thought he could try.

It was pulling against a riptide.

It was fighting the changing of the seasons.

It was like trying to bottle lightning.

_Lightning._

Adashino turned around, his head spinning. His heart pounding. His breath short.

_Lightning._

How was it that he had missed it? How could he have looked past it all so easily, as though the answer hadn’t been there before him? How had he failed to see it? It had been before him this entire time.

An answer, sitting in his wounded palms, close enough to touch and hold.

_Of course._

His heart, he could abandon for the moment. Let it rest, beating against the confines of his chest, let it struggle into silence in the softness of the night. It would be there come morning, waiting as it always was. It was the one thing he was sure of, the one thing he could always count on.

But this thought? It was fleeting, it was fleeting like the perfect gold of the dawn, and Adashino’s feet could not carry him fast enough towards it. 

Desperately, he chased it down the road; for a time, all his excess was forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey look we're on chapter 10 and like. I'm finally starting to realise this might be considered a Slow Burn because they've touched like twice and I'm not even mad about it ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I vibe with Ginko cause one time I broke my ankle and was like ehhh it's fine until it was like a balloon and it was purple. (y) it'll pass whatever jk I was on crutches for 3 weeks and then some
> 
>   
> Lastly, I've realised over the course of writing this that a lot of mushi-shi fics use the present tense; I feel like it has a softer vibe and such so I'm here for it. And then looking at my own stuff, I normally write in the past tense... I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed the difference it makes?  
> PLEASE come [ chat on tumblr please send me a message](http://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com)... I love talking!


	11. Once Discarded Twice Remembered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don't be afraid of your fears. They're not there to scare you. They're there to let you know that something is worth it.”   
> ― C. JoyBell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes hello, it is I here to tell you that things will be more exciting next chapter and!! things!!! sorry Ginko has a concussion so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ these two do need some downtime

His sleep was profound, deep like an unending lake, for the first time in years. Ginko felt himself floating down through the water with ease, sinking deeper and deeper into an endless, gentle darkness. There was perhaps something about the heaviness of the air, the fire burning steadily away, that lulled him into the night. The ache in his shoulder, his nose, a steady pulse against the beat of his heart. A comfort, a pain at once, a blanket made of thorns.

“Ginko! Ginko? _Ginko_!”

A hand pulled him through the fog, firm against his shoulder. 

“Ginko, this is important. Look at me. _Look._ ”

He blinked. Everything was blurry. His lungs hurt, the air searing against his throat. He blinked again, but nothing came into focus. The room swayed with the heat.

“Ginko, this is important. Ginko, look at me.” He knew that voice, he knew the voice speaking, and yet all he could do was stare and try to catalogue why.

He felt something warm against the side of his face, a pulse pressing back against his own skin. He thought of his wrist, and prints against it he knew he would not find come morning. 

“Light. I need you to tell me about light.”

There was a face in front of his, terribly close. It was familiar. Why was it familiar? His fingers moved, tracing the lines before him and not understanding. It felt like he should know how they felt, the angles his fingers ran across, and yet he couldn’t remember ever having touched them. Why hadn’t he ever done that before?

“Light…” He tried the word against his tongue. It was heavy. It _shouldn’t_ be heavy, though. His hand was heavy too, and he dropped it to his side.

“Yes, about the mushi and light. About what sunlight does to them. Ginko, are you listening to me?”

Light?

Everything was so dark.

#  🎋

“Ginko, it’s morning.” 

He could recall having woken up many times before this, but none of it had been clear. Hands on his shoulders, insistent. But he had always been allowed to rest, moments after realising he was awake. It had been like clockwork, if he had been able to catalogue time. And the words had never been clear; now, they were.

He blinked, and remembered falling.

_Adashino._

The mushi-shi sat upright, eye going wide as he began to register where he was. What had happened. What _had_ happened? Where was his friend? Was he alright? Where was _he_?

“Ginko?”

The voice was not one he had expected. It was too soft, too high. He tried not to feel disappointed-- why was he disappointed? He looked to his left to see Haruko standing over him, a cup held carefully between her small fingers.

“Adashino and Izumi went to town for the morning,” Haruko told him. “You hit your head very hard, you were asleep resting.”

The news his friend was alright was like water to a wound he hadn’t expected to have. Ginko slouched back against the wall, relieved.

He nodded to Haruko. Everything was a blur. She passed him the cup she was holding, but the way he took it was mechanical; he couldn’t think.

“Adashino told me I had to insist that you continue to rest.”

Ginko looked up, turning his head around the room. He saw fire, he saw a sleeping mat, and he saw the rest of the room lying empty.

He thought of the hand on his wrist, and felt empty as well.

Ginko turned his eye to the floor, tracing the lines in the tatami. “That sounds like him.”

“You two both looked absolutely miserable,” Haruko told him with a shake of her head, but there was a giggle in her voice. “I would have rather had the both of you stay here and rest, but of course that wasn’t going to happen. Your friend argued my ears off.”

Ginko nodded, slowly, knowing his head would spin if he moved too fast. He thought about what she said. Of course Adashino would have argued, it was his nature to be difficult. “He’s stubborn.” He thought about his recklessness, his pursuit of passion without fear of consequence. “It makes him careless.”

Haruko smiled. “You may think it foolish to be stubborn, but it’s not... not always.” She stood from where she was knelt, motions careful. “It comes from a place of passion. Izumi is like that, too, and it can make her seem foolish to some.” She paused. “Maybe it was a bad idea to send them off together, now that I think about it,” Haruko mused, but there was no worry in her voice. Her lips tilted upwards. “Anyway, I have some rice and eggs done if you’re able to eat. Take your time; I have some weaving to finish but please, just call me when you want more.” She gestured over to the fire, where three bowls were set out along with a set of chopsticks.

“Thank you,” Ginko answered. He watched her back disappear into an adjacent room. Ginko wondered why Adashino had needed to go to the village. Why he’d left him behind, alone, to rest.

The mushi-shi set his cup of tea down and considered distractedly whether or not he was hungry; he didn’t seem to feel anything at all, in fact, aside from the throbbing in his skull. He didn't remember much, either. He recalled very little of the day before: he remembered falling, he remembered the feeling of his heart in his throat, and he remembered a very tall, black tree.

He remembered fingers around his wrist, so hot they almost burned.

He closed his eye. He’d fallen― no, he’d jumped. He’d jumped off the side of a steep drop. He’d broken his nose. He’d hit his head, and also his shoulder.

Ginko opened his eye again and peered around the room. He remembered feeling afraid.

Fear was not something he often gave pause to, for it was an easy emotion to become lost in. It didn't do well to give into it. He’d been swallowed by mushi, had fallen off cliffs, he’d nearly drowned in the sea too many times to count― each time, it had been easiest to simply let go. There was no use fighting against it, no use being afraid. Fear did nothing, resulted in nothing useful, and so it was easier to throw it away. To never allow it purchase, no matter how helpless he felt. Fear was useless.

Yet Ginko distinctly _remembered_ feeling afraid.

He pressed the heel of his palms into the corners of his eye sockets, pressing hard enough that light bloomed under his right eyelid. Why had he felt afraid? How foreign that idea was, and yet above all else he _knew_ it was something that had happened. 

Everything seemed so foggy when he tried to think, and every explanation he reached for disappeared like smoke through his fingers. He was chasing after a memory he wasn’t sure he would ever catch, no matter how hard he ran after it. It would never be whole. Perhaps it was best left that way, for a while. At least until his head stopped aching.

#  🎋

Adashino and Izumi returned not much later, just after Ginko had managed to finish a small bowl of rice. He felt sick to his stomach as he ate, but Haruko looked so worried about him that he couldn’t deny her the effort of trying. 

“Oh, you’re awake properly now.” Adashino’s eyebrows drew up in surprise. The man pulled his scarf off his face and head, and Ginko flinched as he saw the entirety of it: his lower lip split down the middle and stitched together, a large gash crossed his left temple. It was stitched as well, hair pinned away and back from it with a tiny clip. One of his eyes was blackened, pooling purple across his left cheek. 

Was that from the fall? Ginko felt sick to think of it.

Something very deep inside his chest stirred. He swallowed it down.

“The order will take a few days,” Izumi breathed. She was pulling off her layers as well, tossing them to the side without a care, standing just behind Adashino. “They don’t have everything here, so we have to make a request at the neighbouring village.”

“Order?” Ginko blinked. 

Izumi looked at him expectantly, but he had no answer for her.

“Oh, right.” Adashino laughed, and shook his head. His black hair danced, the small mushi flowers swaying. He tossed his scarf over to where Ginko’s backpack lay, not too far from the door and off to his right. “How much of the last day do you remember, Ginko?”

The mushi-shi turned his head away, focussing his single eye on the fire in the middle of the room to avoid looking at his friend. “Falling. And a tree,” he said. He swallowed. “Hands.” 

“Han―” Adashino stopped himself. His eyes widened. “Wait. _Nothing_ else?” His dark brows furrowed. One of his own hands went up to his cheek, and then stopped. He dropped it to his side. “No… no epiphany, no _eureka_ moment, no running through the streets naked and yelling?”

Ginko whipped his head back and widened his eye. “I was _naked_?”

Adashino laughed, and loudly, his eyes lighting up. They were so bright. “No, I mean Archimedes supposedly did all that, you know, when he discovered the principle of volumetric displacement. Not you. Although it _could_ be arranged, if that’s your sort of thing.” 

Ginko sighed and leaned back. “Oh.” Of course he was joking at someone else's expense.

Adashino was still grinning, so wide his stitched lip was bleeding again. His smile was so terribly crooked. Had it always been like that? “So you don’t remember anything else?”

“No,” Ginko lied. He remembered something else, much deeper, but it would stay there in that place beyond time.

“He hit his nose hard enough to break it,” Izumi chimed, half under her breath. “I’m not surprised he doesn’t remember anything, either. Let the man rest, Adashino, you should know better than that.” She’d moved on to folding her layers of clothing, now removed, and was kneeling on the floor. 

“What’s the furthest back that you remember clearly?” Ignoring Izumi, Adashino sat himself down near where he’d come in, crossing his legs. Ginko saw him wince. 

Ginko closed his eye and considered his question. He remembered waking up, realising Adashino was gone. He remembered Adashino telling him not to fall fully asleep for too long. And then he had. He’d been woken up. He remembered reaching out, touching…

He dug his hand into his eye, frowning at himself. Was there nothing else he could think of?

“Last night,” he settled. His ears felt hot, and it was not the fire that made them that way. “You said I had to be woken up.”

Adashino tapped a finger to his chin. Ginko wondered if they still were bleeding from the mushi fog, but he couldn’t see. He wondered if the invisible imprints on his wrist matched their silhouette. “Interesting. So I believe, then, it’s safe to conclude your initial diagnosis of _it’s probably nothing_ about your head isn’t correct.”

He didn’t remember saying that at all. “I suppose so.”

Adashino pushed himself up off the floor, grimacing as he stood.

“Normally I’d prescribe a solid week of rest for you, or more, but I know you won’t listen.” He nodded his head over to Izumi. “They said three days, right? For the supplies we wanted?”

She nodded, interrupting her folding. “About.” 

Adashino turned back to Ginko. The flowers in his hair swayed; Ginko distinctly recalled there having been more of them, before. There had been a crown of them, hadn’t there? Maybe some were pinned under his hair. He nearly felt relieved. “So you’ll rest at _least_ until the supplies come in, since you have nowhere else to be.”

Ginko sighed. “Fine.”

Adashino’s face softened for a moment. “I’m not trying to be cruel, Ginko. You concussed yourself. I’m saying this as a friend, not a doctor: please let me take care of you.”

The back of his neck felt warm at the words― why did it feel so warm? “If you insist.”

“I _do_ insist.” He paused, and as Ginko looked over at him he saw something dark, something maybe painful, pass across his face. “When you feel up to it, I actually would like to ask you about that.”

Ginko frowned. His chest felt incredibly tight. “Of course.” Why did he have that look on his face? 

"Good. I’m looking forward to it.” He didn’t sound it. Adashino glanced away, and then made to cross the room. “Anyway, I’m going to go make some rice― I’m famished. Do you want any?”

Ginko looked down at the bowl of rice he’d just finished. He looked up at Adashino, for the expectation that should be in his eyes, and found only vacancy. “No, thank you,” he said.

“Sure,” the doctor nodded. “Now, rest.”

And with that, he was gone. Ginko frowned at the space he’d just occupied, wondering why the last few minutes felt so out of place. He tasted metal against his tongue, and it reminded him of _fear._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh yeah so, head's up if you're reading this in real-time (ei as it's being posted, today is the 5th of June 2020), please don't be worried if a chapter doesn't go up next week. I'm a bit behind with some other things and I just want to let you know that **if nothing goes up next week, it's not because I've abandoned this!** I will be back, I just may need some time and I can't promise the next chapter will be posted on schedule. 
> 
> I can always be [ found on tumblr](http://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com) though, please come say hello!


	12. The Sun and the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I raised you so high that every other man on earth is now doomed to live in your shadow.” ― Ranata Suzuki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello it's me, a day early with a very long chapter.
> 
> I wasn't satisfied with the last two chapters in all honesty, so I apologise. **edit:** they've been modified since I posted this comment so I'm a bit more ok with them now anyway
> 
> anyway there are a lot of things in this chapter and it was supposed to be two but ... eh have at 'er.
> 
>   
>   
> Notes that would go at the end normally but bc reasons are here: 
> 
> 🎋 _sandogasa_ is one of those cool straw hats; this type mentioned is usually worn by travellers.

Resting was not something Ginko was accustomed to. He had little to do, little he _could_ do. He couldn’t read―it hurt his head―and he couldn’t walk― _it’s too exerting_ , Adashino scolded―and he couldn’t meditate without losing his focus to the pounding in his head. He was allowed to smoke, but only in small intervals, and only because―in Adashino’s words―he looked sad. Ginko _knew_ how he looked: his nose was an awful shade of purple and black, a bruise that had extended over his single eye and across the tops of his cheeks. His head felt like it was filled with cotton. His shoulder ached no matter how he sat. Adashino probably felt pity.

As he rested, he spent a great deal of time sitting outside, on the porch of Haruko and Izumi’s home, staring out into the fog. Adashino was in and out of the home, running by, never with his sandals on. He never said where he went as he left, but he would come back hours later with his hair plastered to his head from sweat. Ginko wished he could trail after, to walk through the bamboo and the foliage and the grey of the mist, but it was all too much too quickly, and he stayed rooted to the porch despite his heart. It was ironic, considering how often he complained of not being able to rest--now that he finally could, he found he didn’t want to. There was a song that called to him from the road, and it was difficult not to answer.

He thought distantly of a similar feeling in his heart, the one that had drawn him to the village by the sea so many weeks ago. It was a call, a call to peace, to the freedom of the promise of familiarity. He thought of days spent on Adashino’s porch, his head spinning from sake and ease and nothing more, and how simple those days had been. He remembered the smell of the ocean and the breeze of salt, the clear blue sky stretching out to the horizon before him. A sky and a horizon he could seek should he want to, but somehow on that porch in that place, he always considered letting it wait instead.

He was glad he had those memories, of the sea, and he was glad they would stay with him. His memories of the day he’d fallen refused to return, though, and begrudgingly Ginko had resigned himself to it. He wondered if there was anything important within them, something he had missed and would continue to miss without knowing. He thought of the blank space in his mind of his childhood, how nothing could be pulled from it. He filed his missing hours with that void, having nothing else to do besides accept it.

There would always be some strange part of him that was missing, maybe, and it would grow larger with time. It had always been there, waiting to be noticed, swallowing things he wanted to ignore one by one. Now it swallowed things he wanted to remember.

It had been there a long, long time, simply waiting to be acknowledged.

And how terrible it was, to notice his loneliness. 

He had made a promise to himself, many years ago, that he would be alone, but he would never allow himself to be lonely. It hurt too much, it was too easy a feeling to fall into-- he had to choose to not feel it at all. He would keep what he could at arm’s length. Nothing, no matter how important, was to be placed within his heart and kept there forever. It was unfair, unjust. His was a life necessitating farewells, and some things were not meant to be placed in boxes and kept from goodbyes. It was not protection; it was selfishness.

Ginko had broken that promise many times over, though he would never say as much. He knew it from the way it hurt to breathe.

 _She told me I was lonely. I hadn’t even realised it myself, but she was right. Not much has changed since, I suppose― she’d probably say the same thing now_.

There was an irony in how Adashino might be the one to teach him this feeling again.

Ginko could almost laugh at the thought, the memory: a man as radiant as the sun, lonely above all else. He hadn’t thought much on those words when they’d been spoken, but as he sat in the silence of the fog it made him sad. It reminded him of a story Adashino had once told him, one from Western myth, one of a man who soared too close to the sun. Was it lonely, he wondered, for the sun to watch this man who chased him fall? What had it felt like to burn so bright that others fell in the radiance?

Ginko rubbed the heel of a palm against the top of his cheek, face hot. It wasn’t like him to be sentimental. 

And still, he wondered if that man had ever regretted his flight. Even as the sea had consumed him, had he thought of the radiance he’d known for a brief moment, so warm on his skin, and had been able to smile? 

Ginko couldn’t recall the end of the myth.

He sighed and leaned back against the house, the porch creaking as he moved. He was thinking too much, and his head spun.

Feet fell soft on the porch, but it was enough for Ginko to stir where he sat. He looked over, finding Izumi leaning out the door, face draped in a long, multi-coloured scarf. Only her eyes were visible, and the very top of her sharp cheekbones; her hair was tucked away under the scarf, pulled tight off her face. Haruko stood just behind her, fingers splayed on her shoulder, the light of the fire dancing across her. 

Ginko wondered how long the two had been standing there, waiting to speak.

“Are you doing alright out here?” Izumi asked, her voice as soft as her footsteps.

Ginko imagined how he must look, his face covered in bruising he couldn’t hide. “I’m fine, thank you. Just thinking.”

“A dangerous passtime,” Izumi said. There was a grin in her voice. 

Behind her, Haruko stuck her head over her shoulder, but stayed behind the frame of the door, in the heat of the fire. “Do you want to come in for tea, Ginko? Anything to eat?”

Ginko looked away, off into the mist, considering the offer. It didn’t feel like he’d been outside for too long, but it had probably been a few hours. “Not right now, though I may come in later.” He paused. “Thank you, though.”

Haruko nodded to him, and pressed a quick kiss to the side of her wife’s face. She murmured something Ginko did not catch into her ear, and stepped back from the door. Izumi turned her head to trace the movement, but only just. There was a fondness in her following stare that made Ginko ache, though he could not tell himself why.

Rather than slip back inside, Izumi pulled the door shut behind herself and sat down beside him. She tucked her feet under herself and settled. “You seem a bit lonely. Would you mind if I kept you company for a bit?”

He shook his head, slowly, an ache still fighting its way through his skull. “Not at all. I was just considering that,” he added under his breath.

“Considering what?”

Ginko shrugged. “Company. Loneliness. I usually travel alone.”

Her eyes widened, and then her eyebrows pulled together. “Oh… so you don’t normally travel with Adashino?”

Ginko had to smile; something in that thought was incredibly warm, the idea they seemed to belong together. The idea that it could, at all, seem natural, normal, routine. Familiar.

“No,” he admitted. “He had to do some soul-searching, so he came along with me for a bit.”

Izumi continued to frown at him. “Do you enjoy travelling alone?”

Ginko opened his mouth to protest, but closed it when he realised he couldn’t give her an honest answer. She read things in him he tried to ignore, himself. It was unfamiliar to him, to be seen so clearly, and all he could do was blink dumbly at her.

“It’s okay to think about it a bit,” Izumi said. Her face softened.

Ginko closed his eye for a moment and nodded, conceding. He could remember he had told Adashino something similar weeks earlier― how it was okay to consider, to think, to take time. He thought about the sun. He thought about drowning. He wondered if he, too, would be able to smile.

“A single raindrop is not the same as a typhoon, and it doesn’t do well to mistake it.”

Ginko could only draw his eye down to his lap, not knowing what he could tell her. What she spoke was sound and kind. “Thank you,” he decided.

He wondered if he could make a typhoon into a raindrop. Would that be a mistake, too?

“Thank your partner,” Izumi said. Her voice was scolding, but her eyes were gentle. “As a frequent traveller, if there’s any one person to keep close to you, I think a doctor is a good choice. Don’t doubt it.”

Ginko blinked up at her, mute. Partner? _Choice_?

“He invited himself,” Ginko managed. His ears felt hot, though the mist was cold.

Izumi shrugged. “Is that your excuse?”

The mushi-shi leaned back against the porch, conceding to her a quiet sigh. He ought to be grateful, at how they both _were_. At how he could breathe, at how very alive he could feel. At how grateful he was to Adashino for being so insistent.

Izumi shook her head, the folds of her scarf bouncing. “For a clever person, you’re very slow. You don’t mind having him along, right?” 

Ginko shook his head slowly. “Of course not.” He thought of the hollow space in his chest. His ears rang.

Izumi pressed her knuckles into his shoulder playfully. Ginko rolled with the movement, letting her push him and not understanding quite why he allowed it. “It should go without saying that if he’s not here by obligation, he’s here because he wants to be. That’s a bit of a selfish thing to take for granted, don’t you think?” Izumi smiled with her eyes. “You’re a good-looking man, Ginko, but nothing I would fall off a cliff for and then smile about, you know? You shouldn’t look so sad.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but found Izumi’s forwardness more vexing than he had prepared himself for. He found himself wordless again.

Ginko remembered fingers on his wrist. 

There was half a phrase, perhaps imagined, shrouded in mist. It was spoken by a familiar voice. It hurt to hear. _Sometimes an outcome can be worth the harm._

Izumi barked a laugh at him, making the mushi-shi jump. “Don’t think too hard― you hit your head, after all. You’ve been prescribed strict rest, besides.”

Then, as though none of their conversation had transpired at all, the woman sprung to her feet. She hummed tunelessly, sliding the door open again. “Would you like to come inside and have tea now?”

Ginko sighed, but ended up nodding despite himself. He’d done enough thinking, she was right. He stood in the eye of a storm, but for now, he may at least enjoy the peace he was offered freely.

He stood, quiet, and followed Izumi inside.

#  🎋

It was hours before dawn should have risen for the fifth time that Ginko found himself pulled from sleep.

_Pitpatpitpatpitpat._

He sat so fast his back cracked.

Ginko looked around the room, his heart hammering hard against his throat. No one else was awake. Adashino lay splayed on the floor, as always. Izumi and Haruko were tangled together as they always were come night. The fire continued to crackle. It was a calm in between the wild beat of his heart that he had not asked for, but he needed.

 _Putpatpitpatpitpat_. 

He closed his eye, wondering if he could take this time and hold it for himself, the peace and the wild beat of his heart at once. To simply sit in the quiet, with the rhythm of the rain on the roof, the fire licking light across the room… The pounding in his head had stopped at last, replaced by the drum of the rain.

There were small mushi floating around, for Ginko could hear their hum fill the air, weak but unmistakable. It was a sound he’d not heard in several days, ever since he and Adashino had entered the valley; it was calming, relaxing, to know that some things were a constant. The mushi that trailed after him would always catch up, even if a thick fog blocked their way. It had taken five days, but they had returned to his wake as sure as spring followed winter. He listened to their music, the soft song only he could hear, and wished the moment might last forever.

No sooner had he considered this than a hand was on his shoulder, one whose silhouette was forever imprinted on his wrist.

“Ginko! Ginko wake up!” He knew the doctor knew better than to shake him, but the man shook him anyway. “Ginko, come on!”

Ginko groaned, pushing Adashino’s hands off his shoulders. When he blinked, it took time for the room to fall back into focus. “Why,” he sighed. He knew better than to ask, but he asked anyway.

Adashino only grinned, the smile splitting his face in the light of the fire. How he was awake so quickly was a mystery; how he was so full of energy was baffling. As the doctor hauled him up, Ginko felt himself wobble as the room turned around him for a moment. 

“This is important, I need you to see it. Come _on._ ” Adashino was already digging through his own bag, pulling out the scarf Ginko had lent him many days previous. He pulled it over his face, wrapping it tight and marching back to his friend without hesitation. “Well, come on!”

Why was it important? Ginko ran a hand over his face, careful of his broken nose―the cotton packing had only just been taken out―and let his shoulders slouch. It was many hours too early to be awake, and every inch of his body ached for sleep. The quiet of the night, the drum of the rain on the roof, the heat that stuck to his skin from the fire… the mushi-shi had never wanted to rest so badly before. For once the call of the road had completely stopped.

Ginko blinked down at his feet where his backpack and other possessions lay in a haphazard pile. He looked at Adashino, standing by the door with a wild look in his dark eyes, and found himself leaning down and pulling out his own scarf despite it all.

There was something in his eyes that seemed hard to deny, an excitement written on his face that the mushi-shi could not push away.

Ginko slid his feet into his shoes, surprised they weren’t stiff after days of neglect. “What happened to my prescribed _rest_?” He muttered, pulling the fabric of his scarf over his face. 

Yet he found he wasn’t annoyed in the slightest, despite what he allowed himself to say. It had been almost five days he’d been sitting in a daze waiting for something to happen, waiting for things to move and change and most importantly… waiting for Adashino to explain to him where exactly he’d been going all this time. 

His friend waved a hand in dismissal, sliding the door of the home open. “I’m a doctor, I say it’s fine for now. This is more important. You’re clearly fine, anyway.”

Ginko thought of the same words, uttered many weeks before in a small home by the sea. _Clearly fine._ There was a twisted relief at how Adashino’s own terrible evaluations extended beyond himself. 

Ginko laughed blearily and followed his friend out onto the porch. Adashino offered him a _sandogasa,_ borrowed from their hosts, but Ginko shook his head and declined. Adashino put it atop his own head and adjusted it, nodding at last when it sat comfortably. There was a strange spring in his step that Ginko hadn’t seen in many days, and the mushi-shi followed curiously, wondering what put it there.

Adashino had been in and out of the house consistently the last several days, but once he was inside he never spoke of what transpired outside. He and Izumi would share conspiratorial glances over supper, but nothing else. And yet the entire time the two were so excited, Ginko came to realise they were deliberately keeping him out of it for his own good.

He’d been supposed to rest, after all.

As he stepped off the porch, Ginko found himself stopping almost immediately, the realisation hitting him as rain fell against his white hair. Inside, he hadn’t considered― but outside, it was so much easier.

The words were out before he could stop himself. “How is this possible?”

He looked up into the mist, into the darkness of the pre-dawn sky, and saw only the grey of the mushi and the lines of rain that cut through them. Something made his heart still in his ribs, pausing immobile in the pre-dawn gloom. He had existed in this valley away from time, away from sun and wind and rain, for many days. And now it was loosening, the hold it held, by some strange grace Ginko couldn’t seem to grasp. It reminded Ginko of something, but he was unsure what it was. He thought of blue flowers.

The mushi-shi frowned, sticking a hand out to feel the thin rain. Into the thing that should not be, in this place away from the world. _Kufuku-kiri eat water,_ he thought. His mouth was open, and he wanted to speak, but no words came out. These mushi ate the mist in the morning, the rain of the dawn and the dew that sat in the shade. He looked up again, perplexed. No rain should pass through their fog, not a cloud this thick― no matter how hard the rain was. The sun could barely permeate it. Rain should be swallowed by it entirely.

_What had Adashino done?_

And it was obvious he had done _something_ . He hadn’t spoke of his plan, he hadn’t mentioned more than passing details to Ginko for, in his words, _fear of interrupting his rest._ The mushi-shi stared up at the murky sky, cloaked by the fog, and wondered what had happened. A flash of light passed overhead, dimmed by the mist. Thunder rolled after it, dancing against his eardrums. Rain fell against Ginko’s face, cold relief.

None of this should be possible, he thought. Not sound, not light, not rain. This mist, these mushi, they ate everything, chewed away time and the senses and all their wonders. This place was hidden behind a curtain of poison, one that blotted everything out without discrimination.

Or at least, it should.

Suddenly, he understood the light in Adashino’s expression.

Ginko’s breath fell jagged against his ribs as he chased after the silhouette of his friend. Adashino was sprinting, yelling, words eaten by the mist he ran through, ever-thinning, as Ginko chased after him. His ears were beginning to ring again, he felt the air pressure change around him, waxing and waning in ways he wasn’t used to. His head pounded in time with his feet.

Suddenly, the grey ended.

If he had been able to recall, Ginko may have thought of the clearing in the woods, and the tree, many days before. But as he ran into Adashino’s back, sweat stuck to his temples and rain plastering his hair to his face, the mushi-shi could only stare in confusion, trying to put the pieces of the puzzles together. He was trying to remember a dream that had escaped him, one that would continue to do so, it was senseless.

Everything was dark, but it was so, _so_ clear. 

They stood between many houses, in the centre of the small village. Ginko staggered forwards, confused, to look up and see the sky overhead: darkened not by mist, but by clouds many a great distance away. Rain hit his face, solid against his cheeks, and pounded against the ground, leaving growing puddles to pool in the imprints of departed feet. It was striking, the darkness overhead, and the curtain of rain it sang down. But more than anything, for the first time in his memory, had there been no rain Ginko would have been able to see each of the buildings around himself clearly.

The mushi-shi felt his legs wobble beneath him, knees unfaithful. What was going on? 

He tugged frantically at the scarf over his face, breath heaving in his lungs. His throat burned, the air suddenly too hot, though the cold from the night made it chilled. 

“It works…”

The pair jumped as light crashed overhead, the brightness crude against the soft grey. Ginko saw how it lept, silent, from the sky to the earth, to―

Not the earth, he thought. His eye traced the silhouette of something unfamiliar, something he had never seen before: standing sentinel in the middle of the village square, like some strange and looming shrine, there was a post reaching towards the sky. It stood taller than anything he had seen in the valley, gleaming copper and stretching over the rooftops and disappearing into the rain. It wobbled, but was supported by ropes tied down around it, taut. His eye followed their outline, the pattern they laid and how it lead back to the metal post, like a great trap meant to capture nature in its grasp.

Another shock of light, so bright it blinded him for a moment, left Ginko swaying where he stood. The air felt hot, charged, electricity grappling with the rain desperately as it left its imprint in the air. Thunder roared against his ringing ears.

Ginko staggered back in surprise, and in the peripheral of his vision, he saw the mushi fog do the same, receding between the houses. The luminance of the lightning left its imprint against his skin.

“It _works_ …”

Ginko blinked, a thousand silhouettes impressed upon his eyelid, squinting up at his friend. Squinting at the village square around him, at the mist that was receding rapidly as the light burned it back.

He understood. 

There was a stupid grin testing his face― he felt it, gentle at first, tugging at the corners of his lips. It was like watching the sun rise, feeling the realisation that came over him. Awe had taken his thoughts, he felt hypnotized by the idea he saw displayed before him, the perfect disruption that he’d never considered. 

He thought of that tall, blackened tree, and how it stood alone. It was all he could recall clearly. 

_Oh_ , Adashino was brilliant.

“Ginko, it _works_!” 

Adashino pulled his _sandogasa_ from his head and tossed it to the ground, letting out a wild holler. He threw his hands in the air, leaping, his bare feet caked in mud. He yelled, his scarf falling off his face and onto his shoulders, jumping like a child in the middle of the storm.

His face was so bright, each line sharp with elation and carved out by joy. He was grinning so wide all his teeth showed, his bottom lip bleeding against the stitches. Ginko remembered his face like this, weeks before, one evening on Tanyuu’s porch. He wanted to keep remembering it, keep seeing it, he realised.To look at the sun, even if it burned him, even if he fell into the sea. He listened to Adashino laugh in elation, the sound ringing, and thought that perhaps marvel on earth could ever compare to the sheer joy it captured.

_That’s a bit of a selfish thing to take for granted, don’t you think?_

There was something warm in his chest, and Ginko knew not if it was the lightning or something else; it would be foolish to consider it, that much he knew.

“It works!”

The doctor spun, his hair plastered to his temples and eyes wild with glee, and his hands found the sides of Ginko’s face. The mushi-shi opened his mouth to speak, to ask, but found himself frozen. He could hear his heart beat in his ears, his pulse hot against the cold rain on his face, the fingers on his jaw.

Adashino kissed him, his hands pressed warm against his cheeks. 

Somehow, miles from the ocean, Ginko tasted salt against his tongue.

And then it was over, Adashino pulling himself away as though he’d been scalded by their touch. The man clapped his hands over his face, over his mouth, his eyes wide under the mess of his rain-soaked hair.

“Oh, gods, I’m sorry… I’m sorry, that wasn’t… oh gods, I was just…” He dropped his hands from his face, and then laughed. It was broken, almost a cough; he laughed again. “Sorry, I don’t know what… I was so… oh gods, sorry.” He covered his face with his hands again and laughed. It stuttered through his fingers. “Oh, gods, that’s embarrassing.”

Ginko licked his lips, the surprise still sitting tight in his chest. He didn’t know what to say. He stared at his friend, cataloging the lines of his face. The way the rain plastered his hair to his head, the way the blue flowers stuck to his temple. He wanted to touch; he’d never wanted anything so badly.

“It works?" He tasted the ocean; had he fallen into it?

Adashino laughed again, the sound cracked and nervous. His hands fell off his jaw, and he looked over at the metal pole in the middle of the village square. “Yeah… it does.”

Then the doctor broke out into a fit of giggles, falling down to his knees in the mud and the rain. He laughed, his hands curling over his stomach, kneeling down and cackling as he held himself. The sound of his voice echoed, louder than before, dancing through the rain.

Ginko looked down at his friend, at the feelings carving lines into his lips and how he laughed with a feral desperation and a relief at once. _I won’t ask._ It was sheer elation, captured in a moment that may never come again in any lifetime. It was a reaction, that was all. Part of him wished it wasn’t, part of him wanted to feel that softness again without shame. For it to mean something; he swallowed that feeling down. Instead of share the sentiment, Adashino just laughed at it, hiccupping as he knelt in the mud, saying nothing of the way his body had moved so freely minutes before.

“What exactly is _it?_ ” Ginko asked instead. Let him think of other things. He thought of the lightning, of how bright it was, and the way it danced through the air. 

The mushi-shi wanted to reach out and touch the metal in front of him, though he knew better. He had seen the way lightning jumped to it, how the mushi fled in its brilliance. Would it be cold to touch? Or warm, like fingers on his face, his wrist?

Adashino stopped laughing, slouching where he still remained knelt in the mud. His eyes followed the ground towards the metal, and then his entire head tilted up towards the sky. “It’s a lightning rod, of course.”

 _Of course_. Ginko felt relieved at the familiarity of the words, of the confidence that spoke of another place and time. The words wobbled, but their syllables were intentional.

“You had said the mushi dislike dry heat, and… light. What’s brighter than lightning, after all?”

There was a brilliance he knew well could rival it, but Ginko said nothing of his friend’s grin. He wanted to smile, himself; to chide the idea of the man who had always wanted to catch mushi suddenly figuring how to scare them away. There was a hysterical irony in it, of course, but at the same time it seemed like a natural thing. It was a puzzle, after all, a curiosity, and Adashino had only ever veered towards that which seemed impossible. 

Perhaps not all curiosity was dangerous, Ginko thought. In fact… “This is... brilliant.”

Something in those words made Adashino laugh again, the sound returning to how it had been when they’d first stepped into the clear air, into the rain, into the open night. “I’ve _told_ you: I’m brilliant at regular intervals. Ginko, why do you never believe me?”

He remembered the porch, the cool wind of the night, and that smile again.

Ginko felt himself tapping a finger to his chin; a habit of Adashino’s, and as he did it he understood why the doctor made the same motion. He thought of the black tree, the one thing of a handful he could remember after hitting his head. He remembered its looming shadow, the heaviness of it, the might. How tall it was. How it commanded so much more than its own silhouette. He wondered if he’d thought the same thing as his friend, before he’d forgotten. Before his injury had caught up to him, his mind wiped black.

His thoughts were interrupted by another flash of light across the sky; Ginko jumped as it rattled through his vision, cracking sharp against the lightning rod and dissipating into the ground. It was suspended against his vision for a moment, the sharp lines and angles and contrast. Ginko blinked, and he saw the lightning against his eyelid. He turned to look around, dazed, to see where its shadow lay, and found there were many sets of eyes watching the same thing. They were hesitant, startled, careful, peering through the rain like the veil it was but hesitant to step into it.

A murmur passed over the village, and one by one the silent observers stepped from their porches and into the puddles on the ground. Ginko felt their awe, too loud to ignore, sweep over him once more. He felt them be captured by the realisation that somehow, by some grace of nature, their worries were over.

The silence of the rain broke, then, and dozens of bodies moved at once.

As the village danced and hollered, crying out in joy in the pre-dawn rain, Ginko wondered if rest was really what he wanted. What was rest compared to this? To the lightning jumping across the clear sky, thunder roaring after it as rain spread a cloak down on the parched valley. What was rest compared to the whoops and hollers of elation, of relief, that rang out through a village that had been saved by a single, strange idea?

He felt himself laugh, stupidly, the joy of the village seeping slowly into his heart the more he stood in the rain. Their elation was a relief he hadn’t known he’d needed, soothing like the cold air of the dawn and the water on his skin. Before Ginko could stop himself he was down on his knees, in the mud, pulling Adashino’s body against his own. “You’re brilliant,” Ginko grinned into his shoulder, fingers curling into the fabric of his friend’s soaked yukata. “Absolutely brilliant. This is amazing.”

There was a feeling in his chest, echoed in the whoops and laughs of the village, the cries in the rain, that Ginko knew he could never bottle and keep. It was incredibly bright, and yet soft at once, something he couldn’t quite place but was reluctant to let go of. It almost tasted like the ocean, as he tried to hold it in his heart.

Hands fisted the back of his shirt, and against his temple he felt Adashino tilt his head up into the rain. “Thanks. It feels good to not be a nuisance for once.”

Ginko felt a petal brush his ear, falling against his neck; warm, soft, and then it was gone. “Why would you ever have that idea?” _Nuisance._ How very wrong it was. He was a relief, a forgiveness, a mercy above all others.

Adashino didn’t answer.

 _I could rest, with you,_ Ginko thought, a relief in the idea more potent than the cold of the rain. “Never mind,” he said instead. As he held his friend tight, the rain drumming down against them both, Ginko closed his eye and listened to the dancing of feet in the mud, the laughter of strangers in the night, and felt the warmth of Adashino’s chest pressed flush to his own. 

He thought of the stars, of the sun, of the softness of the sea against his lips, and knew that when it was over in time, he’d still be able to smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ (softly) _smooch_  
>  **A gift was given to me,[ a beautiful piece of art ](https://changeside.tumblr.com/post/625845812625342464/the-second-feels-heavy-one-was-drawn-for)by @changeside / @sugamenouo on tumblr (it's the second image)! ** I'm so humbled, please take a look at this gorgeous art that is like... a perfect picture of what I had envisioned when I wrote that particular scene. 
> 
>   
>  ~~I'll be on hiatus for a short while, but I promise I'll return. I'm moving apartments and garbage and there's a global pandemic so nothing is on schedule anymore. I will be back mid-July, once I'm settled in my new home with new wifi and things.~~  
>   
>  (also footnote the fic was supposed to end here originally but I'm selfish and not done and there were other things I wanted but I also believe I have earned the right to a small break so that's why we takin a break here)
> 
>   
> I can always be [ found on tumblr](http://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com), please come say hello. Dont care what year what month what day, come message me and talk about yearning. I could also take a prompt or two. (I do mean it. if its like 2025 and this fic has not been touched like idc come talk to me on the blue hellsite. I _will_ be there.)  
> 


	13. Privacy and Honesty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go.” - Robert Frost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello I'm back! Thank you for being kind and patient and all the well-wishes that have been sent to me about my apartment move. I'm glad to be able to bring u this chapter, and the first one from the final arc of this fic! It's a bit more filler-transitional but I'm still happy to publish it as it sets the stage for the closing arc.
> 
> Thank you again for all the love, hope everyone is surviving 2020!

The rain didn’t stop, water pounding through the valley to flood the village with its relief, but despite the rest there came a point where they had to leave it behind. Ginko stood slouched, his extinguished cigarette limp between his teeth, waving to his friend that mushi were returning to the valley and it meant they had to move on. Adashino was reminded of a time weeks previous, his friend having done the same on the steps of the Karibusa library. _Things are catching up_ , he had said, something the doctor had heard many times before.

 _He’s always leaving,_ Adashino considered, _he doesn’t know how to linger._ The doctor was unsure if he found this sad. He wondered if Ginko treated relationships the way one might treat a splinter: withdraw quickly, deliberately, and it could easily be forgotten.

But Adashino didn’t want to forget.

When the time at last came to part from the valley in the mist, the man stood clutching his _sandogasa_ stupidly, trying to hold back tears as the village said their farewells one by one. He didn’t recognise most of them, but they recognised him, and they all knew what he’d given them. He thought for a fleeting moment of his own village, and he ached deeply for it in the seconds he allowed the thought in his mind.

Izumi took his hands into her own, nodding and grinning and wishing him luck in his travels; she gave Ginko an inconspicuous nod, at which the other man looked away and put a hand to his face, chewing mutely on his wilted cigarette. There was something that passed unspoken between them. Haruko, for her part, embraced the doctor with fervour, her head only coming to the middle of his chest. There was such a strength in her arms that Adashino dropped his hat in surprise, his back pinching at her squeeze. Her arms softened, and he felt himself begin to shake as she cried into his yukata, the drizzling rain muffling the sound but not the feeling of her body pressed to his, quivering as she tried desperately to say goodbye.

It was strange, he thought, returning her embrace and placing his hands gently on her back, how close he could feel despite barely knowing a person. His own heart was shaking, and he was struggling to hold his own sorrow back. He wondered if this was what Ginko felt so often, and why he wore that strange mask over his emotions when people began to look too long. It hurt to have to pull Haruko away, to nod and promise her and Izumi he’d come back, though they all knew that if he did return, it may only be after years. There was something in leaving the valley behind that felt as though he were shedding a part of his own skin against his will. He picked his _sandogasa_ from the mud mechanically, shook it, placed it on his head, and waved his last goodbye.

He hated goodbyes.

“They really liked you,” Ginko said, once they were out of earshot of the village. He said it as though he was surprised. He had his thin, brown jacket draped over his head and his backpack, a weak defence against the rain. Adashino wanted to laugh at the sight, but he held the sound between his teeth. Ginko looked so incredibly awkward as he walked, jacket tented over his head, but yet each step held in it such a poise and certainty that Adashino couldn’t chide him for it.

Adashino scrubbed the heel of one of his palms against his cheek, pressing back unshed tears. “Everybody likes me,” he answered, “honestly, you hardly stood a chance.”

Ginko frowned, but it wasn’t cruel. There were still deep bruises below his eye, across his nose, and Adashino wanted to trace his fingers across them and soothe the skin; he didn’t. “Is this a competition, now?”

The doctor let himself laugh, the sound lost to the rain. If it was, surely he would lose― Ginko could never understand how much of _everything_ he was. It was Adashino who had never stood a chance. “I could be the world’s greatest mushi-shi, you know, if only I could see them. You’re lucky I can’t.”

"You’ll never learn.” Adashino saw half a smile pulling at his lips, and he felt his cheeks go hot to know perhaps he was the cause of it. He let the warmth fill his face, and turned his eyes to the sky.

He considered the pride he held in his chest, the kind that wasn’t boastful or arrogant, but a soft sort of satisfaction instead. He thought about how Ginko had looked at him, early the morning before, the bruises under his eye well outshone by the light inside it. Adashino remembered arms around him, when he’d been knelt in the mud wanting to cry, wanting to laugh, and how words had pressed against his neck like relief. Something in them had made him feel like he was home, though he was far away. He wondered if Ginko had felt the same way.

If he hoped hard enough, perhaps it may come true.

The hike out of the valley was hours long, much longer than the initial descent, and yet Adashino felt no need to press on or walk quickly. He wanted Ginko to move slowly, if possible, give himself what rest he was able to coax from delay. He was reminded of the night before they’d hiked down into the mist, of the proximity and distance at once he’d felt between himself and Ginko, and yet the peace that had filled his heart. He felt it again, the simple luxury of being near, trailing in the other man’s footsteps where the path narrowed; though they couldn’t walk shoulder-to-shoulder, walking in his wake made Adashino just as happy. Let their footsteps linger as long as they needed to, he thought, there should be no rush in this for now.

As they reached the crown of the valley and made their way down the road, the rain abated and Ginko peeled his jacket from his head. The mushi-shi draped it over one arm and sighed, shaking his head: some of his hair was still stuck to his face, wet, despite how he’d thought he’d avoided it.

“Izumi offered you a _sandogasa_ ,” Adashino chided. He tipped the edge of his own with one of his fingers. “They’re very comfortable.”

Ginko shook his head again, rain sticking to the ends of his hair. Adashino didn’t hear what he said, words spoken but falling to ears filled with cotton, as the doctor recalled pressing his hands into the softness that was now heavy with rain. It was so white, he thought, and he remembered it felt just as much like silk as it looked. He recalled holding his palms against Ginko’s jaw, the brilliance of lightning filling his heart, distance between them closing to nothing―

“Oh, _gods_ ,” Adashino buried his face in his hands, suddenly mortified at the memory. _How_ had he let himself do that?

He thought about the lightness in his heart, the elation, and how his body had moved on its own. He’d felt so free, so overjoyed…

And then he’d felt so terribly, horribly ashamed.

“Huh?” Through his fingers, Adashino saw Ginko tilt his head. “I said I’m not made from sugar, I won’t melt in the rain.”

Adashino shook his head, feeling heat creep up the back of his neck. He was glad Ginko hadn’t seemed to care beyond being startled, he was grateful the other man hadn’t brought it up at all, but that didn’t stop Adashino’s thoughts from returning to him when he least wanted them to. He scrubbed his hands down his face, pulling at his cheeks in embarrassment. “Forget the rain,” he mumbled. Part of him wanted desperately for Ginko to ask him about it, to perhaps absolve him from the mortification he felt. And yet there was a part of him that realised it was perhaps best if they never did mention it again.

“If you say so,” the mushi-shi responded. Adashino peeled his eyes from the ground when he smelled tobacco; Ginko had re-lit his cigarette casually, fingers tapping his lips. “What would you rather talk about?”

Adashino bit down on his tongue. He thought about rainbow mountains in the southern Americas, and he thought of forests so old and unknown on other continents how they had seen millions of lives come and go. He thought of the darkness of the bottom of the ocean, the infinity of the sky, and somehow he wasn’t sure at all that he felt like talking of any of it. 

Adashino went to speak, half a word forming, when a crack of thunder boomed overhead. The two stopped in the middle of the road, looking up, only to see clear sky.

“Did you―” Adashino started, but realised that looming in their footsteps was a column of cloud, so dark it was nearly black. The sun shone on ahead, illuminating the road, while the storm traced their path up from the valley like it was following their shadows. He squinted back towards the hills they’d left hours earlier, and was horrified to find the curtain of rain pummelling the earth with such a vengeance Adashino could see its might despite the distance, no fog to eat away at it.

He thought dimly of standing on an overlook, the sea to one side and mountains to another, and Ginko telling him they ought to move on before the weather turned. Perhaps his comment had been many weeks too early. 

“We should have stayed in the valley,” he sighed, and found his feet shuffling down the road while his body longed to stay still, to stare up at the looming darkness.

Ginko eyed him skeptically, taking a puff of his cigarette. “Any longer and the farewell would have made you cry,” he said. 

Adashino crinkled his nose.

His friend’s lips curled, and he nodded to the cloud, “I think it’s best if we pick up our pace, doctor. Not even your hat will survive that.” And he was right: the storm was approaching far too quickly for either of them to feel comfortable. 

Adashino shifted from foot to foot. The idea of Ginko running while his head was still recovering made him uneasy, but the storm was far larger than he’d thought it to be at first and hadn’t expected it to leave the valley after them as it had. He could feel the wind beginning to tug at his yukata, mist clinging to his cheeks as the rain rolled rapidly in. Being out in the open might be worse than running.

“Be careful.” Adashino stuck one hand out, and with the other pulled his _sandogasa_ from his head and offered it. “Don’t move too fast, don’t over-exert yourself, and give me your bag and coat. Wear the hat.”

Ginko narrowed his eye. “You’re going to pry―”

Adashino scowled as lightning flashed against the horizon. A drop of rain hit the doctor on the top of his head, fat and heavy. He felt the wind begin to pick up again, pulling hard at the fabric of his clothes. 

“We don’t have time to argue about this, you stupid mushi-shi.” He glowered, “I don’t fancy getting soaked again. Yesterday was enough.” He shivered as he remembered the other man holding him, mouthing words against his neck. “If you’re going to run down the road, it’s not going to be with that pack, not while I’m standing here begging you to treat yourself kindly. Now trade with me!”

Ginko, flinching as rain began to hit him as well, slid his pack off and tossed Adashino his coat. He took the _sandogasa_ and put it on his head, white eyebrows furrowed and a frown on his lips. He sighed, shoulders slouched in defeat, nodding once to Adashino before taking off. 

Adashino had no time to open Ginko’s cabinet and snoop; all he could manage was to throw his own bag and the other man’s jacket atop it, heavy with the smell of tobacco, and slip his arms through the straps before the rain was pummelling down on him. It was heavier than the rain in the valley, sudden, and cold; wind whipped at his face, his hair flying until it was too wet to do anything besides stick to his temples. He could hardly see, the rain so heavy and the wind so strong, and he staggered as he tried to find his footing. He padded down the road as fast as he could manage, Ginko’s heavy cabinet clicking against his back. He wondered how Ginko did this all the time.

It wasn’t long before he caught up, following the silhouette of Ginko’s white shirt through the cloud of rain that fell like a curtain. The air was so heavy, the wind pushing and pulling so suddenly, Adashino felt like he’d walked into a typhoon from nowhere. Each drop that hit his head was weighted, nearly so much it felt like hail, and goosepimples ran across his skin under his yukata at the feeling.

“I see something up ahead!” Ginko yelled, his voice nearly drowned by the rain. He took off down the road, and Adashino didn’t have so much as a moment to holler back at him that he needed to take it easy, even when running.

Lightning crashed overhead, thunder rumbled so loud the doctor nearly felt the ground shake beneath his feet.

Adashino drew in a deep breath, his back pinching, and pulled his muddy feet down the trail. Each step landed in water, wet earth pressing around his sandals and between his toes.

The shadow Ginko had seen was an old teahouse of some kind, lonely on the side of the road and standing sentinel across from a wide field. It was dark inside, all the sliding panels on the sides closed and signs flipped down, rattling in the wind as the rain howled by. 

The pair collapsed onto the porch, Adashino tumbling so hard Ginko’s pack nearly fell from his shoulders, his feet and calves caked in mud and his shoulders wet with rain and sweat. The wind howled against the wood of the porch, and Adashino felt himself crawling closer to the abandoned building in a desperate attempt to keep himself from being blown away.

He slouched against the building, hiding behind a post and peeling off Ginko’s pack. He looked over at his friend, concerned: the other man looked just as exhausted, the fading bruises across his nose and eye doing little to help his lack of vibrancy. He was collapsed on the porch, arms stretched over his head, _sandogasa_ clutched in one hand and his wilted cigarette in another. His shirt was transparent from the rain, clinging desperately against pale skin.

“So,” the mushi-shi said, turning his head to Adashino. His hair fell with the motion, a cascade of white weighed down by the rain to drip water onto the porch. He clearly hadn’t worn the _sandogasa_ for long. “How do you like travelling with me now?”

Adashino felt a laugh bubble in his chest, unsure what to say. His throat was tight, his eyes unable to leave the lines of Ginko’s throat, the folds of his shirt, the rivulets of rain that traced skin Adashino had never touched. Adashino didn’t normally believe in such things, but the other man looked like divinity as he lay in the crest of lightning. He ached.

The doctor closed his eyes and slouched in shame, swallowing the heat in his face down. He felt nothing short of ragged, and it hurt to look at his friend. “It’s really awful,” he sighed. He was soaked, he was cold, and everything ached. He was so filled with a nervous energy, and yet all of him was long past exhaustion from running. He drew in a breath, his throat burning, and dared open his eyes again. “Although I suppose my company isn’t half bad.” 

Ginko was quiet, then, the silence stretching out to the point that Adashino could nearly hear his heart beat against his lungs despite the drum of the storm. He wondered if there had been an expression he’d made, or the twitch of his lips, that had said too much. He looked over at his friend, but Ginko looked away, his head rolling against the porch and eye scanning for something on the horizon Adashino knew he couldn’t possibly see. There was a heat tracing the tips of his ears, so soft and pink Adashino wondered if he imagined it.

“If you like the company then, I wouldn’t mind if you stayed.” 

In those words Ginko spoke he heard echoed in the admission words of his own. His friend hadn’t answered him, those many weeks ago. Something about it hurt, something about it made him doubt so many things he’d taken for granted. It was the weight of his heartache in so few words, returned to him in apology.

_You could rest with me, if you wanted._

The ache in his heart lightening, Adashino nodded. His fingers itched to reach out, to show his relief, to wind them through his friend’s. To place his fingerprints against the other man’s, the way he’d always wanted to. Even, forbid his heart, to straddle Ginko as he lay on the porch, and bring himself so close there would be no space between them for anything to be mistaken. But Adashino kept himself still, his wandering hands at his side, still, empty, though for the first time in weeks his heart felt incredibly full. He was happy as he was, and it was more than he had ever asked.

“I wouldn’t mind if I stayed, either.”

#  🌺

Adashino knew he snored, but surely not  _ that  _ loud.

The man was jolted from his nap by a sound not dissimilar to a heavy breath, or a cough, and he sat bolt upright as fear traced his spine.

The rain still pounded, heavy and constant, and the wind rattled the frames of the building behind him. The doctor held his breath, looking around nervously, but all he could see was the blur of the rain and, off to his right, Ginko’s slouched figure smoking beside his pack.

“I… did you hear that?” Adashino hissed. 

The mushi-shi looked up, eye lidded and unconcerned. “Hear what?” His hair was still wet, so wet Adashino could see drops clinging to it― clearly he hadn’t been asleep for that long. Maybe a few minutes.

The doctor forced himself to stand, swaying on the porch. “I’m not sure. Is…” he braced a hand against one of the sliding walls of the house―teahouse?―and felt the paper wilt at his touch. “What if we’re not alone?”

His friend shrugged and took his cigarette out of his mouth. On his lap, he had half a scroll out; seeing Adashino look to it, the other man folded it and readjusted his posture so it couldn’t be read. “What  _ if _ we aren’t?”

There was a hunger in his chest as he looked at Ginko, at his soaked shirt, at his unconcerned expression and floppy hair― but stronger was the annoyance that filled his lungs, pressing hot against his throat. He looked so disconcerned, sitting there reading his scroll. “What if they’re bandits? What if they’re robbers?”

Ginko shrugged. “What if they’re ordinary people who took shelter from the rain?”

The simple, nonchalant answer made him red in the face, embarrassed because he knew Ginko was probably right. If there were those here that meant malice, he would have known about it much sooner. But rather than admit it, Adashino huffed, frowning away from his friend and towards the front of the porch. He knew he'd heard something. He pushed his hair from his forehead, wet from the rain, and stalked his way towards the entry. 

It was apparent immediately that they were not the first ones to have stopped at this place― now, or previously. The door had once been barred shut, but splintered wood lay scattered and the door hung half on its track, half cracked and bent inwards. The doctor knocked thrice, though he had no clue why, before stepping over the mess and inside.

“Hello?” He called into the dark, hating how his voice wavered. There was a cold sweat on the back of his neck, though he knew there was little reason to be afraid. 

The inside contained overturned tables, rolled and mouldy tatami, and more broken wall panels. He wobbled as he walked, his eyes adjusting poorly to the darkness; rain fell through open pieces of the roof, water pooling on the floor. His footsteps squelched, and the doctor flinched.

“Hello?” He repeated.

“Hey.”

Adashino jumped, a hand clapping down on his shoulder, and let out a yelp he hadn’t expected to find lodged in his throat. He wheeled around in the dark, tripping over an overturned chair and landing on the ground, the sensation of his legs against the tatami jarring all the way up his spine. Heart hammering, he felt his soul pull against his mortal form as he realised the source of the touch was only Ginko, standing in the doorway with half a grin on his lips.

Adashino slouched into himself with a groan, wanting to do nothing more than dissolve into the floor. He thought perhaps rain only brought terrible things, and lowered his head to his chest.

“It’s okay, we’re just travellers. We’ll be gone once the rain stops.”

Adashino raised his stare and groaned at Ginko, squinting into the dark. He saw a set of shadows move against the back wall of the building, and jumped from his slouch to his knees. “There  _ are  _ people,” he hissed.

Ginko nodded, keeping his gaze fixed to the back of the teahouse. “Hm,” was all he said.

Adashino forced himself to stand again, brushing off the parts of his yukata he was sure were coated in unsavoury mess; not that it did much use, as every part of him felt sticky from the rain besides. “H...Hello?” He called out a third time. “Sorry to have scared you…"

Ginko looked at him skeptically, perhaps a judgement on his choice of words or perhaps judgement of how he had changed his opinion. Adashino scowled, though he wasn’t truly mad. 

“We have some food, if you’d like. We're friendly, just travelling through.”

“That’s exactly the kind of thing an unfriendly person would say,” Adashino scolded under his breath.

The shadows didn’t seem to mind, though, and slowly they moved closer. Coming out of the back of the building, the doctor realised it to be a pair of people, no more: one man, slightly shorter than himself, and a heavily-pregnant woman. The man walked in front of her, ever so slightly, his body shielding hers.

“Your offer is very kind. I’m sorry, but we can’t reciprocate it.” The woman’s voice was soft, small, timid.

Ginko nodded. “I never said you had to. I’m Ginko,” he added. His smile was kind, soft, so open and gentle and made Adashino remember why he’d fallen into all of this mess in the first place.

“Kinji.” It was the man who spoke this time, but as he offered his name Adashino realised he couldn’t be terribly old― his voice had a youth to it, an energy time hadn’t yet stolen away. “This is my sister, Yumiko.” He bowed.

The woman waved, tentative, shy. Adashino waved back with the same sort of hesitation. “Adashino,” he said.

“Were you caught in the storm, too?” Ginko’s voice was at ease, the tone so natural and relaxed that Adashino felt he could finally release the tension held in his spine. “Or were you here for longer?”

The young man, Kinji, took another step forward and close enough that Adashino could finally make out his face. His sister followed, her hand clasped in his: she looked to be in her late twenties, and he in his early twenties. The pair were both soaked, their yukatas clinging to their shoulders heavily, Yumiko’s pressed against her swollen belly. 

“Yumiko needed to rest, and then the rain started,” Kinji explained. He waved his free hand at the ceiling, rolling his eyes. “Didn't even manage to stay dry, in this place. We should have been many miles from here by now, but…” 

Yumiko elbowed him, hard enough the young man yelped. “My ankles are swollen,” she snapped, but then quickly withdrew back into herself as she looked towards Ginko and Adashino. “I was tired,” she said softly.

Adashino wanted to laugh, but he schooled his expression. “I’m not carrying a baby around, and I get tired. A rest is nothing to be ashamed of.” He wondered silently why a woman and her brother were travelling alone in such a place as this, and while she was so late in term. It made him worry.

Yumiko seemed to relax at his words, and after some shuffling around the group managed to sit in a small circle in the threshold, Ginko passing out peaches that Haruko had sent with them. Adashino wasn’t terribly hungry―he gathered by a guess it was hardly noon―but he took a bite regardless, not wanting the food to go to waste. 

“Are you headed anywhere in particular?” Ginko’s voice was again a refuge, calm and sure and inviting. It was strange how well he could talk when he chose to.

At the question, Yumiko’s eyes lit up. She put a hand on her belly and leaned forwards, smiling. “Yes! We’re headed to an onsen over the mountain!”

Ginko opened his mouth to speak, likely something encouraging, but Kinji cut him off. “She’s obsessed by it, please don’t.” He frowned at his sister. “Yumi, please.”

She shook her head. Adashino noticed that her hair was quite long, plaited into a long tail that ran down her back. “I’ve been planning it for months, and it’s been a really lovely trip so far.”

“If it was that good, Satoru would have come,” Kinji muttered.

Adashino watched as Yumiko’s eyes narrowed on her brother. “You know that’s not true. And you’ve been having a good time, don’t be so dismissive.”

Kinji rolled his eyes, leaning back onto his hands. “Yeah, a good  _ waste _ of time.”

Yumiko scowled, but looked back to Adashino and schooled her face. “It’s important to me, and important to the baby.” Her hand returned to her swollen belly. “Kinji is keeping me company since my husband is so busy at home.” She smiled, but there was something about it that seemed strained. “It’s an important trip. The mountain will bless you if it sees fit. I want my baby to do well.”

Kinji sighed, but both Ginko and Adashino leaned forward; the former tried to hide his interest but failed, his hand falling away from his face as he dropped his cigarette onto the floor. 

“The mountain will  _ bless _ you?” He asked softly.

Adashino looked at his friend from the corner of his eye, the interest and the light on his face stirring something dangerous in the pit of his stomach. He forced himself to look back to Yumiko, ignoring the shiver that threatened to seize him. 

“It’s a stupid legend,” Kinji interjected. He leaned forwards as well, waving his hands as he spoke. “The mountain springs impart health and luck to weary visitors, or something. You make the pilgrimage and it will guarantee your health.”

Adashino looked then to Ginko, who looked back darkly. The doctor swallowed a pit that had lodged itself into his throat, and tilted his head at Yumiko. “ _ Onsen _ have recorded healing properties, but in my experience―as a  _ doctor― _ ” he added, realising that such a detail was probably important to note, “they’re an unwise pastime that late in pregnancy.” He chose his words carefully, speaking slowly. She thought she knew what was best, and though she was wrong Adashino couldn’t fault her for it. “I can’t imagine the travel has been kind to you, either― and you know, your own health is very important to the well-being of your unborn baby.”

Yumiko smiled gently, nodding. “I’ve been told it would be worth it, in the end. My first daughter was born sick and she’s had a long road to walk to health, so I want this child to have every chance they can, even to my own detriment.”

Adashino nodded slowly, a soft sorrow in his heart he couldn’t name. He went to speak, but Ginko spoke first: low, measured, just as careful as his friend. “Spoken like a loving parent. I would recommend considering what Adashino says, though, and to treat yourself kindly,” he added. 

Yumiko looked down, patting her stomach again. There was a soft affection in her eyes, and yet a worry Adashino was glad he may never know. “My husband didn’t understand, either. But this place is a promise, a promise more important than any other one I’ve ever made. It’s not just words, there’s something more to it― the Blessing is real.”

There was a silence that fell between the group as they registered her words, broken only by the rhythm of the rain. They were heavy, and light at once, filled with a burden too weighted to carry and yet the possibility they’d be set free.

Ginko was the first to speak, lighting a fresh cigarette with a match as he spoke. “This does sound like an interesting place, this spring you speak of. Would you mind if we accompanied you up the mountain?”

Kinji was skeptical, the emotion plain on his face as his eyebrows furrowed and his lips drew down. But the young man said nothing and instead looked to his sister. Yumiko looked down at her belly, considering, and then looked back up at the pair of strangers she hardly knew. “It couldn’t hurt, could it? Company is a kindness― if you’d like to come along, I wouldn’t mind.”

Ginko returned the sideways smile she offered, though Adashino could tell from half a glance the man was wearing the expression as a mask. Beneath the veneer there was a concern, one Adashino had seen not a week before, and the beginnings of something he knew he could not fight off. He saw the shadows under Ginko's eye, and the expression in his posture he tried so hard to hide-- there was something dark here, something waiting just beyond his reach.

The doctor sighed, leaned back, and allowed dread to fill his chest. He wished he had a mask of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen, I see an excuse to have a wet t-shirt contest and make Ginko the only competitor, I'll take it. dont @ me
> 
> come find me on the [ blue hellsite](http://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com) and let me know if u think cereal is a type of soup
> 
> (also in my text document this marks Page 99, so like... congrats for reading this far and thank u so much! if u too are lying on your kitchen floor crying please leave me a comment or kudos, or send me a message on Tumblr !)


	14. Could Be Familiar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “To me, you were more than just a person. You were a place where I finally felt at home.” ― Denice Envall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hello I have no idea what day it is anymore. :D

Ginko wasn’t sure who slowed them down more: Yumiko, or Adashino. While one was heavily pregnant and doing their best to keep a solid pace, the other was grinding his teeth and babbling loudly about whatever came to mind, dawdling over anything and everything. Stops were frequent, whether it was because Yumiko needed to rest her ankles, or because Adashino had to stop to look at a particular plant he’d never seen before and compare it to every other sort of plant he knew, Ginko was less than impressed at the time it took to reach their destination. 

Though he didn’t say as much, he was quietly glad (through the veil of his annoyance) they took three days to reach the foothills of the mountains Yumiko was seeking. Ginko’s head still pounded when he walked too fast, the sun beating down too hot, and he could feel the way the ground seemed to wobble beneath him. Though Adashino carried his wooden backpack for him, the long days Ginko had once found easy were incredibly draining, causing his ears to ring and his sight to waver if too many hours were spent on the road. The slower pace Yumiko demanded was a breath of relief he would never have forced upon himself otherwise. Travel was something he hated to admit he may need a break from.

It also offered a fair amount of time for thinking.

It was strange he had never heard of such a place― a fountain of youth, nearly. Adashino had once mentioned that a similar place of healing seemed to exist in Europe, barely north of the Pyrenees mountains, if the mushi-shi recalled correctly. Such a place was supposedly blessed with divinity, some sort of Western deity granting healing to those who visited; Ginko pondered if it, too, was a cause to be suspicious of mushi. This one, in the heart of the midland mountains, certainly was.

Nothing can be freely given without being taken, he had once been told. Not by man, not by mushi. If such a spring, known to grant health and fortune, was as real as Yumiko seemed to believe it was, it set a pit of worry in Ginko’s stomach at the question of where that health was taken.

“Law of Conservation of Energy,” Adashino had once said to him, and Ginko recalled a dusty tome plopped down on the floor of the doctor’s house. “In my opinion, it was really first established in non-singularity and non-linear models here: _Hydrodynamica, sive de Viribus et Motibus Fluidorum Commentarii,_ ” he had declared the title in an incomprehensible accent, gesturing far too flamboyantly at the book. Ginko’s eye, at the time, had done nothing more than skim the cover. It was incredibly dull-looking. “It was originally published over a hundred years ago, and this is a second-edition print!”

Ginko closed his eye as he walked, recalling how Adashino had beamed. “Do you even know how to read it?” was all he’d thought to ask at the time, like a wet blanket over the fire of the doctor’s passion.

He didn’t recall what Adashino had said after, as like what he had said previously it contained a multitude of words Ginko hadn’t been quite ready to understand. It had been early in the morning, the sun barely rising above the horizon, and all the mushi-shi could remember was the way it had shone gold against Adashino’s dark hair. He’d been so tired, but everything around him had been so terribly vibrant.

Taking a huff of his cigarette, Ginko wished he could hear the lecture again. It would be better than what rose to his ears as he hiked presently, and more than anything it might tell him a bit more of what to expect at the crest of the mountain.

He turned his ear back, wondering if he could ask again; he held his tongue and decided he wouldn’t. Adashino was gesturing again, _sandogasa_ back on his head, pointing at the foliage overhead and speaking quickly to Kinji. The young man would nod, then shake his head or frown, and say something quickly back. Every so often, Yumiko would giggle, walking just behind Kinji and curling a hand into the shoulder of his yukata. Ginko allowed himself to fold into the soft sounds of the mountain, the gentle voices behind him, and in the background, a faint memory of the sea.

#  🌺

There was a small hamlet tucked up into the mountain, so small Ginko wasn’t sure he would even have called it a settlement of any kind had there not been a signpost at the road marking it as such. He could see what appeared to be a stopping-house, and a handful of other scattered buildings, but nothing that would ordinarily mark a village or hamlet. Pausing in front of the weathered sign, the mushi-shi chewed absently at his cigarette and wondered if Yumiko knew exactly where to go from here.

Ginko turned, and found Adashino was carrying her in his arms, his face red, the sleeves of his yukata tied up with a _tasuki_. Yumiko was clinging to his neck, head pillowed against his chest, mumbling an apology that she cut short as the pair stopped, coming level to where Ginko stood. The mushi-shi pretended he wasn’t surprised at the sight, not knowing how long the doctor had been carrying Yumiko and realising he hadn’t truly been paying attention, and nodded to both of them.

“Do you know where to go from here?”

Ginko jumped as Kinji caught up with them, the noise of his scrambling startling the calm of the mountain. The young man bent over his knees, panting, and then stood to wipe sweat from his forehead. “I have the directions,” he wheezed.

Adashino said something low to Yumiko, and then set her gently on her feet. Her fingers unwound from his neck and went quickly to her belly, holding herself steady. “I could do for a break first, please,” the doctor managed. Sweat stuck to his forehead; the blue flowers in his hair swayed, unbothered. 

Ginko considered, taking his cigarette from his mouth and exhaling the smoke. He looked overhead, pulling his eye away from the line of Adashino’s lips and how the doctor ran his tongue over his stitches nervously. It made him think of rain, and of salt, and of fingers against his jaw, and he didn’t want to consider those things. He looked instead at the small mushi floating by, bright and oddly-shaped, and watched them dance around Adashino’s head. 

“I suppose we could break.” The sun was still decently overhead, but it was starting to sink. “It depends how far up the mountain we still need to travel.”

Adashino groaned in relief and shrugged out of Ginko’s pack. Shoulders drooping, Adashino slouched down atop of it, much how the mushi-shi often did himself. It nearly suited him, the lazy posture, though Ginko would never say so aloud.

Kinji pulled out a pouch from inside his yukata, and pulled from it a folded sheet of rice-paper. “If I remember, we’re supposed to cut behind the house. It’s another half a day through the brush. We shouldn’t stop here for much longer.” He waved the paper, but did not unfold it.

Ginko exchanged a quick glance with Adashino― if the doctor wanted to protest, his face gave nothing away. He nodded silently instead, and stood from Ginko’s pack. Adashino shouldered it without a word; if the mushi-shi did not know him as he did, he would not have seen the way Adashino winced when he stood. He thought about Yumiko, how the doctor had carried her, and how he continued to carry Ginko’s bag as well as his own. How this time, there had been no complaint― perhaps travel was growing on him.

Ginko spent the next several hours tracing the lines of Adashino’s silhouette while they walked, cutting through brush, thinking about how dark his hair was and how the sunlight made its colour change ever so slightly to brown. He watched the blue flowers woven around the doctor’s head lilt, and kept his hands in his pockets to stop himself from touching them. He remembered standing in the rain days earlier and wanting to touch, as well. His throat felt terribly dry.

As the sun began to sink below the tree-line, Ginko heard Kinji yell from up ahead. The young man broke into a sprint down the trail, leaving Ginko, Adashino and Yumiko to frown in his wake; after several seconds of confusion, the three followed as quickly possible, Yumiko setting the pace. Catching up, Ginko could see clearly why Kinji had yelled: in the break of the tree-line sat a small set of houses, surrounded by a well-tended garden and a silhouette of steam rising behind the buildings. 

“Oh, absolutely amazing!” Adashino turned quickly, his face lighting up as he nodded to Ginko, and then back to the clearing. He held Ginko’s stare for a moment, just long enough that it was unexpected, and not knowing what else to do the mushi-shi looked down at his feet. When he looked back up, Adashino had stepped out into the garden ahead and was exchanging words with Yumiko and Kinji.

Perhaps Ginko should have taken in the cloud of mushi over the rooves of the buildings, or the strange pink haze that clung to the steam. He should have drawn his eye to the grass, the way it swayed and all the ways in which it didn’t. But instead he looked at Adashino’s figure, watching him for a moment, the way his shoulders moved as he talked and the expressions he made with his hands, so free and open and familiar. Ginko knew those hands so well, he thought, and yet not well enough. Something about it made him ache, and something else made him swallow the feeling. The mushi-shi rubbed his wrist, tracing invisible marks, and stepped out into the setting sun.

  
  


#  🌺

Adashino didn’t say how much their stay had lightened his wallet, but the doctor had chosen for them a modest room and that said enough. Ginko wondered how Yumiko could afford such a thing, or how desperate she must be to have to, but the consideration made him want to think of other things with the way it seemed to drag sorrow in its shadow. Instead, the mushi-shi sank down onto the floor as soon as he was allowed, hearing a distant ringing beginning to threaten his ears, and embraced the chance to rest. He scrubbed his hands down his face and allowed himself to collapse onto the tatami, closing his eye and listening to the crickets and cicadas that chirped in the evening. He hadn’t realised how tired he was until he had been allowed to stop. 

Adashino, by contrast, busied himself for several minutes, walking around the room and pacing as though he were trying to make a map of every inch of the space with his feet. Ginko listened to him, to the soft hum of the mushi that followed him, and smiled to himself. It was strange how a man so tired previously was so filled with energy now that the sun had set, while Ginko found himself quite the opposite. What was more curious still was how quickly all these movements had become familiar, almost a certain comfort in them Ginko had not known a season before.

He cracked his eye open and watched Adashino lazily, watched small strings of mushi follow him around the room, watched him as he tucked Ginko’s pack gently into a corner and placed his  _ sandogasa  _ atop it. He then placed his own bag beside it, settling the possessions he’d brought with him, and clapped his hands together in satisfaction. There was something affectionate in his motions, almost, and Ginko felt his lips curl up as he thought about it, and how Adashino poured love into everything around him― intentional or not. 

“Do you fancy something to eat?” 

Ginko blinked and sat up as the doctor turned back to him, and rubbed his eye as the room spun for a moment. He considered. “Not really.” The hot sun had seemed to steal any hunger he might have had, and the cicada song outside spoke of a time to rest.

The doctor crossed the room and squatted in front of his friend, frowning. His yukata slid from the  _ tasuki,  _ sleeves falling over his wrists. Ginko wanted to fix the fabric, though he could not tell himself why, but despite this he didn’t move. “You haven’t eaten since morning, are you feeling alright?"

Ginko's mind wandered from the doctor's concern, tracing instead the line of his creased brow, his downturned lips. Even in his worry, Adashino's features were beautiful in a way Ginko had never noticed before, sharp and soft at once, so terribly expressive. His head spun with the thought.

“I just need to sleep,” he said. He put a hand over his face, digging his fingers into the inner corners of his eye-sockets, flinching when he pressed too hard and pulling his thoughts back to where they should be. “I’d like to get up early tomorrow to look at the onsen as soon as possible,” he attempted. If he were honest, his head was spinning again and he wanted nothing more than to sleep, but he did not want his friend to worry about his current state. 

The back of Adashino’s hand pressed against his forehead, just under his hair, and for a moment Ginko remembered sitting on a tatami, his ears ringing something wicked, Adashino chiding him for not listening, not following advice, crouched in front of him in the same way. He closed his eye and let the memory fade; Adashino’s hand retreated from his skin.

“If you insist,” his friend said. He stood from where he was crouched, soundless. Ginko felt fingers in his hair, a gentle caress of hands that was slightly too intimate. He leaned into the touch without noticing, and when the hand retreated it was hard not to feel robbed.

“I’ll just bring you back some water, I suppose.” Adashino’s voice was soft, gentle, like the way he’d handled Ginko’s things as he’d set them down. “You settle in.”

“Mmm,” the mushi-shi agreed, as he was already stretched out on the floor by the time Adashino suggested the idea of it. The doctor slid the door open and disappeared, motions far softer than anything Ginko knew of him, and the mushi-shi lay in the silence he left. He let himself stay where he was without guilt, thinking of the sunset and blue flowers, of fingers and of rain. Of how heavy his heart was feeling as of late.

He heard footsteps some time later, once the room was dark, and heard the shuffling of fabric and feet across the tatami. There was the sound of Adashino lying down, not quite close enough to feel but near enough it was a comfort. Ginko rolled over, the sounds a routine he knew well by this point, half-asleep and thinking how different things were from a similar night when he’d once slept in the doctor’s home, rolled away, worry having sat like a lead ball in his stomach. He could nearly smile at the difference. He was glad of it, and perhaps that was selfish of him.

He closed his eye, and dreams swallowed him.

It may have been a minute, it may have been hours, but the knock of a hand against wood made Ginko jump awake. He heard the door slide open partially, and a voice hissed through the dark. “Adashino…? Ginko?”

The doctor was up within seconds, feet hurried but surprisingly sure in the darkness. Curious, Ginko sat up. He felt dizzy for a moment, but the feeling soon left. He opened his eye and squinted towards the voice.

Kinji stood in the doorway, wrapped in a thin yukata and a paper lantern clutched in his hand. It threw strange shadows across the room, casting Adashino’s figure into abstract silhouettes where he stood in front of their visitor. 

“It’s the middle of the night,” Adashino hissed. There was a moment where Ginko saw him look over his shoulder, to which the mushi-shi nodded back as they met eyes. Adashino responded by scrubbing a hand down his face, groaning. “Come in,” he sighed, but gestured openly for Kinji to enter.

“I was awake anyway,” Ginko lied. He felt tired and stiff, sleep tugging at him in a dance that he was unfamiliar with. He wondered if this was what nighttime  _ should  _ feel like.

Kinji walked across the tatami slowly, carefully, as though he was afraid he might burn his feet if he stepped too surely. He set his lantern down on a low table and slouched to the floor. “I’m sorry, I just…” He drew his eyes away.

Adashino sat beside him, yukata slipping off his shoulders; Ginko imagined he’d not been completely dressed when he’d stood up, his outfit likely bunched in all the strange ways it tended to as he slept. “Whatever it is you came to say, please say it before Ginko falls asleep again.”

At the mention of his name, the mushi-shi jumped to sit straight. “I’m fine, take your time.”

Kinji pinched the bridge of his nose, drawing in a sharp breath. “I’m not sure it’s your business, but I think it could be,” the young man said. He slouched again, and for a moment he looked so much older than he was, the lantern drawing the lines under his eyes low and dark. “It’s about Yumiko.”

Adashino looked to GInko, and both of them said nothing before turning back to Kinji. “Is she alright?” Ginko spoke softly, cutting his friend off before he could ask the same.

Kinji’s face looked pained as he answered. “I… I don’t know. I was thinking about what you said a few days ago, Adashino, about hot springs being a bad idea… and all the nonsense Yumiko spouts about this onsen here… I think I saw something weird out back, like a glowing steam of some kind, when I went just―”

“Steam?” Ginko thought of the pink haze he’d seen earlier, had nearly forgotten, and cut Kinji off. “What colour was it?”

Kinji’s frown deepened. “It was… kind of pink. What does that have to do with anything?”

Ginko looked down at his lap, his mind going blank. “I’m... not sure.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Adashino lay a hand on Kinji’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter for now. Tell us what you wanted to say about Yumiko.”

The young man balled his hands on his lap. His stare was heavy, focussed on the floor in front of his knees, eyebrows drawn down sharply. “I… I don’t think she should be here. I have a bad feeling about this place, like it’s... not quite right here. It’s not right for her. It’s not right for anyone. But she’s obsessed― you’ve seen how excited she is― she won’t leave it alone.” His face scrunched, and then he looked up. “She thinks this place will fix it all, fix everything, and I keep begging her to go back to our village but she won’t listen. It started well before we met on the road, but now we’re here and I  _ need  _ her to go home, to give it up before something bad happens. It’s because of that…” He drew in a breath, shaking, his shoulders wobbling under Adashino’s fingers. “Her baby, the one she left at home… it wasn’t born sick, you know. It was born… dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> 🌺 The spring in Europe is located outside of Lourdes, in a grotto called [La Grotte de Massabielle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes_water#:~:text=Lourdes%20water%20is%20water%20which,Lourdes%20on%2025%20February%201858.</a).  
> 🌺 The book Adashino is talking about is _Hydrodynamica: sive de Viribus et Motibus Fluidorum Commentarii_ which was originally written in like... 1738 .  
> 🌺 _Tasuki_ literally means string or rope, but in this case it's those useful ones used to [ tie up the sleeves of a yukata ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs6y2gOfQfI)when doing work.
> 
> Uhhhh not sure I have secret Author Comments about this chapter in particular (also because of the... uh sour note at the end I'm sorry) but [come chat w me on tumblr! ](http://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com)Sometimes I think of things later!


	15. Curiosity and Passion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What did my fingers do before they held him?  
> What did my heart do, with its love?"  
> ― Sylvia Plath, _"Three Women: A Poem for Three Voices"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warning** : mentions of miscarriage, stillbirth  
> content begins at "ever since we were kids," and **can be skipped by CTRL+F for "I left my fiance with our parents to come with Yumiko", which is where it ends.**
> 
> **me** : oh this is cool my fic is coming to an end soon..  
>  **also me** : oh WAIT but WHAT IF I ADDED―  
>  _anyway yeah the chapter count went up again not sorry_

Kinji scrubbed his hands down his face, and Ginko thought the young man could slouch no further down until he did just that, curling into his own arms. His shoulders were shaking, fingers twitching where they shielded his eyes. “I thought I could… talk her down,” he tried. There was a defeat in his voice Ginko hated to be familiar with. “I thought she could come around while we travelled, realise how stupid it was, and now…” His hands fell from his face. The young man was biting his lip so hard it was beginning to grow raw under his teeth. “I feel silly, being so worried about something so… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be here right now.”

Kinji went to stand, but Adashino’s hand was clamped down on his shoulder before he could so much as start. Ginko’s eye widened― his friend had moved before Ginko had even registered what Kinji had tried to do. “No feeling is silly,” the doctor said. His grip was firm but his voice was soft, serious, and terribly warm all at once. “Don’t write yourself off so quickly.”

Ginko felt strange, having words he had often articulated stolen right from his lips. He watched, mute, as Adashino spoke softly in his stead. 

“Start from the beginning,” the doctor instructed. “You were concerned for Yumiko before you arrived here― and yet you came with her still. Tell us why.”

His words were not accusatory, but they made Kinji’s brows draw down in the light of the lantern anyway. He stopped trying to flee, though, and slouched under Adashino’s hand on his shoulder. “Someone had to, or she’d do it alone.” The man played with the sleeves of his yukata, frowning down at his lap. “Look, she’s… she’s had a rough time.”

Kinji slouched further again, hands twisting into his outfit as he laid out his story: “Ever since we were kids, Yumiko wanted to be a mother, okay? She’d never wanted anything so badly. It was part of everything she did, every move she made and everything she said. When she married Satoru, about five years ago, I thought maybe she would finally stop wishing and just... _be_ happy.” Kinji winced, and Ginko knew in the shadow of his eyes what would be said before it was spoken aloud. He drew in a shaky breath, the lines under his eyes drawn out as he looked towards the two older men. “She’s miscarried more times than I would wish on anyone. She’s been in a… listen, about three years ago she carried her baby to term, but it was…” He made a choked sound and bowed his head, eyes squeezing together and shoulders drawn tight. Ginko couldn’t pretend to understand what he was feeling, though he could see it clearly written into every movement of the other man’s body. Kinji drew a breath in through his teeth. “It was stillborn, so small, just… everything was right, until it _wasn’t_ . She miscarried after that again, and again, and… she’s been desperate, bargaining, hoping for anything to make this right, and more than anything she’s latched onto _here_ .” Kinji looked up, looked to Ginko and then to Adashino and then down to his lap again. “She holds her stomach like there’s something precious inside, but tells me it feels like it did before. That there’s something _wrong_ and _empty._ Satoru refused to come with her here, he begged her to stay. The doctors told her everything is fine, everything is normal, and she’s so afraid she won’t believe them.” He shuddered. “I left my fiance with our parents to come with Yumiko because I was so sure I could do what Satoru hadn’t managed to… and I _failed_ .” Again, a pause, a shuffling of his fingers in the fabric of his outfit. He shook his head. “There’s just something about this place that feels awful, something I can’t explain… and my sister doesn’t see it. She doesn’t care. I feel like if Yumiko does anything, it will only be worse than what has happened already, do you understand? ... _you_ ,” he nodded to Ginko, ever so gentle despite the way his eyes were a dark fire. 

The mushi-shi felt cold for the first time in a way that left him at a loss for words, unmoving under Kinji's stare. "Me," he finally said. He felt as though all the blood had drained from his body, though he could not say what about Kinji’s accusation left him that way.

Kinji nodded. "You asked me about the steam… About what I saw. Like you saw it, like you felt it too." Ginko knew the tone in his voice, had heard it too many times to count. He could see the same desperation Kinji described in his sister, right there in his own eyes. A deep need for understanding, for closure, for… something that was missing. "Yumiko doesn't see it, can't see it, but she had heard about it. It’s what brought us here. She thinks this place is made of magic. You wanted to come with us, you asked us about it― what is this place, _really_ ?" His voice cracked. " _Please_ , tell Yumiko we have to go.”

It was Ginko’s turn to look at his lap, holding back a sigh. Where once he had felt comfort, warm in this place with Adashino beside him, all he felt was the cold claws of Kinji's plea closing around his chest. This was a story he knew too well for his own liking, a story he didn't want to hear if he could avoid it. But there was no running― he could never run. He had chosen this direction and elected to walk towards it as he once had before. His path was decided.

“There are things in this world we don’t understand and never will,” he said quietly. He’d explained what he did more times than he could remember, and each time it felt heavier. He could feel the press of Kinji’s worry against his chest, so weighted it nearly choked him. “There are things that live in the space between life and death, things not everyone can see but we are able to experience all the same.” His eye fell to Adashino, to the small mushi that danced in the light of the lantern about him― he wondered if Kinji saw them as he did, clear and bright and gold, or if he saw them only as shadows in the dark. “Some people call it magic, but it’s not so concrete as that: some are harmless, some can be dangerous given the right circumstances. These... beings, _mushi,_ they are everywhere, including here. But all of them are so different from one another, and I can’t tell you what these ones will do― not until I’ve seen them.”

“But you―”

Ginko held up a hand, gentle, asking for permission to finish. Kinji bit down on his lip again. “Using something like this without understanding is dangerous, that much is certain. I can tell your sister this, but it would be no different to her than what Adashino has already warned her of." It made him sad to consider it, that he had so little insight. "If her heart is truly set, if this is what she believes will cure her and save her child, there’s nothing I can do to change that. I can’t make a promise I can’t keep.”

The mushi-shi saw the way Kinji’s face wobbled at his words, the way his eyes began to scrunch. In that moment Ginko hated the uncertain answer he had offered, the non-committal response he had committed to. He thought of weeks past, of chiding Adashino on forgetting, on letting go, and he knew as he had in that moment that he had chosen his words so very wrongly. He opened his mouth to correct himself, to pull back words he’d said, but another voice cut him off―

“I’ll speak to her.” The pair turned to Adashino, who despite the mess of his hair and unkept state of dress, seemed more certain and put-together than Ginko had ever seen him. His eyes were alight, lips set in a thin line in the shadows of the lantern. “I’ll talk to her, Kinji. If Ginko can't, I will." An uncomfortable smile was on his face, one that served as a mask he shouldn't have to wear. "How long had you planned to stay?”

Kinji looked up, hope in his eyes though beneath them there were still deep shadows. “A few days, probably… however long it takes.” He sounded nothing but exhausted.

Adashino nodded, solemn, and drew his eyes down to his own lap. “Then I’ll use that time as best I can. I promise.” He paused, and then chewed his cheek. Ginko wanted to reach out, to steal the discomfort from his shoulders and free the nerves that caused them to shake. He was told he was a comfort by many he passed by, and yet as he sat in the flickering lantern all the mushi-shi felt was cumbersome. He was silent, unsure, hesitant for what may have been the first time in his life. 

Adashino shook his head. “I know what it’s like to not want to lose something.”

Ginko traced the mushi in his hair with his eye, and watched another petal begin to curl.

#  🌺

  
  


Ginko knew what he had lied about the evening before, and loathed to turn it to truth as dawn started creeping across the edges of the mountains. He sat, dizzy for a few moments, and played over the last several hours in his head. It seemed so far away, yet so near at once. He closed his eye, thinking of how desperately he wanted to lie back down and roll over to sleep.

The mushi-shi opened his eye again after many long moments, tracing lines of gold and pink as sunlight fell into the room and spread itself across paper walls. It fell on Ginko’s pack, still tucked in the corner with Adashino’s _sandogasa_ still gently atop it, and the mushi-shi reluctantly allowed himself a smile. 

He turned his eye to his friend, still fast asleep and sprawled out on the floor. His limbs, as always, were twisted at strange and uncomfortable-looking angles, but the man himself didn’t seem to care. His yukata was half-open, strewn off one shoulder to show the thin white line of a scar that the mushi-shi couldn’t seem to stop himself from returning to in his thoughts. He wondered if Adashino even remembered it, and what he would think if he knew how desperately Ginko wanted to feel it under his touch. Or why. 

His ears hot despite the cold of the room, Ginko reached over and threaded his fingers into Adashino’s hair, eye tracing across the small blue flowers that were tangled in it. His traitorous heart pressed hard against his ribs, wondering what caused them to fall. He ought to feel happy― either Adashino was moving on, or someone somewhere was thinking fondly of him in his own absence. And yet he felt worry chew at him, and perhaps even envy, a feeling he knew he should divorce himself from for the better. The mushi-shi wondered again if he should tell his friend, catalogue to him the petals that continued to curl and wilt, if he should reveal to Adashino that given time, he’d be free.

Ginko pulled his fingers away and decided he wouldn’t. Not now, anyway. 

He stood and stretched, the room wavering for a moment and his shoulders cracking. Though he wanted to linger in the soft sunlight, to lie on the futon and lose himself to the comfort around him, he knew if he waited to long the rest of the inn and surrounding buildings would come alive and he would miss the window he’d said he needed. Even some lies came from truth, anyway. The idea of creeping around unseen may have been one of them.

He padded to the door and moved to slide it open before he noticed a small pile of fabric beside it, along with a pitcher of water and two ceramic cups. Distracted, he crouched down and unfolded the pile, ignoring the water, realising it was a stack of indigo-dark yukata for the onsen. Glancing over at Adashino, still asleep, and then back to the pile of cloth, Ginko stood and folded the yukata over his pack, setting it atop Adashino’s _sandogasa._ It was quick work to change, leaving his feet bare, and though he felt awkward in an outfit he hadn’t worn in many years he knew it would be the easiest way to blend in. He drew enough attention as it was. 

Ginko closed the door softly behind himself and shuffled down the patio hall, around a small courtyard and out to the back of the building, chewing absently on a cigarette as he walked. There were several other small buildings scattered about the space, carved so softly into the mountain it did not seem out of place in its heart, and the mushi-shi paused in the shadow of a vine-covered pergola to trace the shapes around him. He thought of Adashino standing in the grass the evening before, the sun in his hair and the smile on his face, and shook his head at his own distraction. He recalled thinking he should have been cataloguing the space, and yet he’d failed to do it anyway. 

The mushi-shi sighed and played with the cigarette between his teeth, eventually making off towards the westernmost building. In the thin line of the pre-dawn sun he could see a small fence rising up beside it, a small paved trail running towards the front and lined with many sizes of volcanic rock. If he had stopped to look a little longer, Ginko thought he may have found it pretty; however, given the sun beginning to rise he declined to stop and give pause. 

Padding around the side of the building, Ginko wondered if the property owners knew what they were doing. If they were deliberate and malicious or if they were naive and thought it was a kindness to misuse the forces of nature. He wondered what he might find behind the fences, the rocks, the gate, and just how dangerous it could be. Perhaps it was simply a hot spring. He would like to talk to them, but there was a feeling in his gut that it would be a conversation best saved for later.

Ginko knelt down in the dewy grass against one of the fences, awkward at first as he remembered how to move in a yukata. Behind it, he could hear the trickle of water and already he could faintly smell sulfur in the air. One loose board meant the mushi-shi was crawling through on his hands and knees into the closed-off onsen, grimacing as the yukata he’d put on snagged against the side of the fence. He had no idea how Adashino wore one every day. 

He crept behind an arrangement of small trees, more rocks and a fountain, squinting around through the mist of the onsen and the pre-dawn darkness. He heard nothing except the water, and could see nothing except the steam.

The mushi-shi walked around the pool several times and frowned down to it― this wasn’t what he’d seen, what Kinji had seen. Returning to where he’d pried the board in the fence loose, Ginko replaced it and crossed the space back towards the building. 

He paused before he slid the door open, listening for anyone else that may be inside― there was no one. It was just a small bathhouse annexed to the outdoor section, so humid that Ginko felt his hair begin to stick to the back of his neck. He pulled the yukata away from his skin and fanned it across his chest, feeling like he’d returned to Izumi and Haruko’s home much sooner than he’d expected to. His bare feet stuck against the floor as he made his way around the inner wall. 

Ginko was starting to wonder if he’d imagined it, the pink steam the night before, until he opened a sliding panel and found what he had been hunting for: a small corridor, labelled in polite but threatening script to be off limits to guests― and yet the drag marks on the tile told of how it was moved regularly enough to allow passage. He felt a strange energy through the darkness, one he knew better than he liked. Ginko chewed his tongue and slipped through the door, drawing a lungful of tobacco smoke into his chest before closing the passage behind himself.

It ran steadily downwards, into darkness, until the mushi-shi realised the corridor was passing underground. He felt along the walls, half-blind, until the floor began to slope upwards again and gave way to stairs lined with lanterns. He paused at the bottom and listened, listened against the ringing in his ears and the thud of his own heart until he was sure there was nothing above but silence.

Ginko found himself outside once more, warm oranges and pinks from the sun at last fully cresting the tops of the mountain and reaching the grass. But it wasn’t the sun that made where he stood glow in shades of rose: Ginko felt himself smile as a familiar hum rose to his ears. 

He knelt down beside the shallow pool of water and listened, staring down at the surface of the water. He could hear the way it sang, he could feel a strange energy thrumming about it, and yet as he stared down the only abnormality he could _see_ was the gentle, warm blush it carried.

Ginko frowned down at the water and pulled a small bottle from inside his yukata, careful not to touch the surface of the pond with anything more than the glass. He corked it and tucked it back inside his outfit―

The sound of footsteps caused the mushi-shi to jump to his feet, cigarette falling from his mouth and hissing as it met the water. Ginko cursed to himself, ears ringing, nervousness building in his chest, and ducked behind a cluster of shrubs and flowers neatly arranged along the side of the pond. He lay flat on the ground, the sound of a door sliding breaking the silence of the dawn as he clamped a hand over his own mouth to keep his breath quiet. 

“Clean?” A voice called.

Footsteps approached, and Ginko resisted the urge to curl into himself, a sweat breaking out along his temples. He wasn’t supposed to be here, no one was, and he hoped he thought it was more dangerous than it actually was.

“Someone’s mussed up the edging again,” came a sigh, far too near to where Ginko lay for his comfort. There was the shuffle of small pebbles, more footsteps, and then another sigh. “Some… and someone was smoking out here." There was a grumble, a wet sound as Ginko assumed his abandoned cigarette was plucked from the water. 

A second pair of footsteps advanced, soft but audible against the grass and gravel. “Really? Ridiculous, you’d think people would be more careful…” A sigh.

"We should probably clean this again, that woman will have to wait…"

There was some muttering, and all Ginko could do was lie still, shielded by a thin layer of foliage, and wonder how he could possibly explain himself. He wasn’t supposed to be in this place, listening to the hum of the mushi pool, and there wasn’t any manner in which he could argue a lie.

And then, as certainly as they had come, the footsteps retreated.

Every muscle in Ginko’s body loosened in relief when the sound of the door sliding closed echoed across the yard. The mushi-shi sat up, fixed his hair back into place and brushed his yukata down, cataloguing the dark foliage around him and thanking it silently for keeping him, dressed in indigoes, hidden.

He saw a row of particular flowers, dark purple along the edge of the fenced onsen area, and frowned at them: he’d seen them before, in passing, lined in rows upon rows in the sunshine... _Irises._ Ginko stood and looked at the pool again, then back at the flowers. He listened to the drum of his heart against his ribs, closed his eye, and laughed to himself.

#  🌺

Adashino was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room when Ginko returned, a cup of tea and a tray of plums set out beside him as he frowned down at a small stack of papers. He looked up from his task and jumped when the mushi-shi entered the room, sending one of the fruits rolling off the plate as the tatami jumped with him.

Ginko narrowed his eye, wondering if the scrolls were his own. He traced the lines on them and found he didn’t recognise them― perhaps Adashino wasn’t as meddlesome as he always pretended to be...

“Sorry,” Ginko said, sliding the door closed. “I should have knocked.”

There was a startled blush across Adashino’s face, but the doctor waved a hand in dismissal. “It’s fine― welcome back,” he said, sighing in embarrassment and retrieving the errant plum from just across the tatami. He stared at Ginko for a moment, unblinking, before tearing his eyes away and focussing intently on the plum in his hand. His voice sounded far too heavy as he spoke: "You, ah, I'm glad you found the clothes. You look good, by the way.”

Ginko looked down at himself, having nearly forgotten, and then looked over at Adashino in surprise. The doctor had traded his own yukata and juban for the same loose, inn-provided outfit, and yet it did not look strange on him in the slightest. Perhaps it was half a body too large for him, hanging loose around his shoulders and open around his chest where normally it was tucked tight. For a moment, seeing Adashino so lazily dressed, he felt out of place with how carefully he’d folded his own outfit. He looked back to Adashino to trace the loose lines it ran across his chest before absently pulling his own outfit to mirror the tired folds. 

“Thanks,” he said in passing, ignoring how his friend’s words made the back of his neck warm. He shouldn’t think about that. “I thought I’d forgotten how to tie an _obi_ for a moment.” He let his shoulders slouch.

Adashino offered a smile, leaning back where he sat. “I’m impressed you remembered which way to fold your collars,” he teased. 

Ginko snorted and crossed the room, folding his legs under himself to sit across from his friend. His knees cracked as he sat. “If anyone would have asked, I’d be mourning the death of my ambitions.” *

“Ambitions?” Adashino took a sip from his tea, and then set it down. Ginko picked it up and mimicked, letting the matcha coat his tongue. He ignored how intently his friend stared at him, how carefully he chose his words as he watched Ginko steal his drink: “You’re too laid-back, your ambitions died a long time ago.”

“Exactly,” the mushi-shi retorted. He set the cup down, ignoring how his fingers shook, and offered half a smile. His tongue tasted bitter, but warmed by the tea. Then he remembered what he’d brought back, and fiddled in the lining of his yukata. “Hey, quickly, what do you see?” He pulled out the glass bottle, filled with rosy water, and held it out for his friend.

Adashino squinted for a moment at it, and then closed his right eye. Then he opened it, and closed his left. He closed his right again, and frowned. “It’s water,” he said at last, leaning forwards and looking again with both eyes open. Ginko traced the edges of a sunburn across the bridge of his nose, and then the lines of the stitches in his lip while his friend glowered at the bottle. “What about it?”

Ginko shook it gently, and then set it down on the tatami between them, tearing his eye away from Adashino’s face. “What colour is it?”

Adashino frowned up at _him_ then, away from the glass, shaking his head. “Is that a trick? It’s colourless.”

“Hm,” Ginko said, looking down at the soft peach of the bottle. If he closed his eyes, he thought he could hear the faint hum of mushi, as well. But it may have also been the half-dozen of them that floated around the room, singing a chorus only he could hear. 

“Seriously? Arm I supposed to see something?”

“Not everything is like that mist in the valley,” Ginko sighed, and plucked the bottle back from the floor before Adashino could think of it any longer. He wasn’t sure why he was disappointed. He didn’t want to think about it, either. “Anyway, thanks.”

Perhaps it was childish, perhaps it was a fool’s error, but Ginko traded the bottle in his hand for something he’d kept tucked in the long sleeves of the yukata, pressed against the side of his arm. He held it out to Adashino, eye fixed on the other man’s face and cataloging the motions it made. "I found a few of them outside and thought you might like one."

“I…” Adashino's eyebrows rose ever so slightly, his lips threatened a smile and then pulled down into neutrality. Along the tops of his tanned cheeks, there was a hint of heat along the skin that Ginko realised must be embarrassment. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. His eyes traced the lines of the flower held out to him, but he did not take it from Ginko’s hand.

The mushi-shi slouched, and then forced himself to sit up straight. “I’m not telling you off, in case you’re worried,” he said gently. He wondered if he’d made another mistake.

At that, Adashino broke out into a grin and took the flower from his fingers, turning it over in his hand. He laughed nervously, tapping each petal as he huffed. “This isn’t funny,” he said, smiling as though it were.

“I think it’s funny,” Ginko offered back, “I hope you like it, anyway." He didn’t tell Adashino how he’d lain in the dirt holding his breath, how undignified he’d been not moments before he’d seen them. He watched instead how gently his friend touched the flower, and all he could think of was the sensation of those fingers on his own jaw, along his skin and pressed against his cheeks. "You'd wanted to talk about insistence, before," he spoke, "and I want you to understand I'm happy to have you with me. Don't feel as though you have to leave."

Adashino blinked at him, and then bit his lip. If he thought anything of such a confession, perhaps a touch too gentle and a touch to intimate, he said nothing in response. There was a faint blush painting his ears, red against the black of his hair.

Feeling his own face grow hot, the man stood and cleared his throat, dusting off his yukata and walking over to his pack. His ears were ringing again, his hands sweating for no reason. Ginko pressed his fingers against his face and sighed into his palms, kneeling down on the floor in front of his bag. 

“Thank you... I... say, where did you get―” Adashino’s voice stopped abruptly, concerned. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Ginko sighed, at last feeling the warmth drain from the tips of his ears. Of course he wasn’t, he hadn’t been since he’d watched Adashino fall off the side of the valley, but that thought was for him alone to keep.

He felt embarrassed of his own thoughts, that they might make his heart leap from his ribs to his throat. For so long he’d not allowed such a thing, and yet he hadn’t noticed he’d started censoring his own habit of repression until finally it had shown on his face. He felt sick at allowing himself the liberty of feeling. He was playing a game he wasn't meant to be a part of. This was something he wasn’t allowed to have.

He felt his own voice hesitate as he sought distraction: “Are you going to talk to Yumiko this morning?”

Adashino was quiet for a moment, and then, “yes, I think so.” Ginko heard him shuffle where he sat. “What do you plan to do with that water? Is that from the onsen?”

Ginko shrugged, already opening his cabinet and pulling out the drawers that housed the parts of his microscope. He needed to distract himself. “Yes; I’m going to study it,” was all he could manage.

Like the mist in the valley, he had no map for this. He was still learning about his own trade, and the amount of the universe he had yet to catalogue was staggering. He was so small, wandering through this world, that he wondered if ever he would see an end to mystery. This gave him pause for a moment, and then he closed his eye and remembered an afternoon sitting in Adashino’s study, a cracked and over-used tome plopped down in front of him. 

“You… you had a book I could use for this, I think,” he tried. “ _Hydro… hydrodynamica,_ something long.”

Ginko heard Adashino stand, crossing to remain a shadow just behind him. “Oh, that old European book I had smuggled in? What about it?”

The mushi-shi twisted around, frowning in surprise. “ _Smuggled_?”

Adashino’s face lit up, and once more he became the sun, the purple iris held lovingly between his fingers. “Of course; it’s from Europe. Surely you don’t think even half of what I own is legal, do you?” He looked down and grinned knowingly, twirling the flower in his hand. “There's hardly any fun in that, anyway." 

Ginko sighed and turned back to his cabinet, tucking the last of the empty drawers back and beginning to fiddle with the microscope parts he could assemble without too much thought. “I was starting to wonder if you attract trouble on purpose,” he sighed, but despite himself he was smiling as well. He was quiet for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “That book was about energy, wasn’t it?”

Adashino hummed in agreement. “Well, energy specifically in non-particle nonlinear systems, but yes. It outlines principles that were already hundreds of years proposed, using examples specifically within the context of fluid dynamics and―” he stopped, abruptly, and Ginko looked up from his work to purse his lips at his friend. “It goes over several models for energy transfer and conversions.” Adashino finished.

The mushi-shi flinched as he heard Adashino’s tone draw down, saw his brows crease as the man censored his passion in the name of brevity. He wished in that moment he knew how to tell the other man that he _did_ listen when he spoke, that he cared even when he didn’t understand what it was he was going on about. Because to Adashino, the smallest of details were important― and so, Ginko realised quietly, that made them important to him.

“I think this mushi may make use of those properties in that book,” Ginko said, and though he had hardly looked at the bottle inside his yukata or thought much on the matter, he remembered Adashino telling him it was best to have questions in order to pursue an answer. To have a theory before seeking to prove or disprove it. “It isn’t a miracle, what it does. Health can’t be offered so freely as Yumiko believes.”

“Some other things can be, though,” Adashino said quietly. There, again, was that soft affection that he poured into everything, deliberate or not, and the mushi-shi felt its warmth radiate in his chest. Ginko moved to look over to Adashino, to question what he meant, and then he realised perhaps he hadn’t been meant to hear those words at all. 

_You can rest with me, if you like._

He didn’t mind hearing them. He thought distantly of Adashino shaking him awake, a fire burning bright in his eyes while the moon had leaked in through a window. _Tell me about light, Ginko._ “Tell me about energy, Adashino,” he said. He felt himself begin to smile again. “Tell me, please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🌺 * Adashino and Ginko are referring to right-over-left versus left-over-right folding for the collar of the yukata or kimono. One way is casual, every day dress (left side over right) and to fold it with the wearer's right panel over the left is usually worn to a funeral....  
> 🌺 Japan in the 1800s was closed-border, so no outside literature or items were allowed easily into the country. I say easily because, well, obviously many things made it in anyway.
> 
> **a very very VERY lovely friend o mine made a[lovely doujin page](https://changeside.tumblr.com/post/627264105123921920/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9Ever-english-ver-inspired-once-again) from one of the scenes in this chapter!** Go take a look! We all simp Ginko in a yukata ok ok. 
> 
> like I think Ginko looks cool in modern clothes, but like... he wore traditional clothes for the 1850s or whatever when he was younger, why did he decide to stop? foolish man. foolish man, get back in your yukata so you and your boyfriend can match and have your fucking hot springs vacation together  
> come [find me on tungle.Hell and say hello](http://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com) dont care if it's 2023 I;ve been on that site since 2008 so I'm not leaving any time soon, send me prompts or requests or ideas for when I finish this fic, and-or just come say Hi!.  
> 


	16. Any Fool Can Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “To be your friend was all I ever wanted; to be your lover was all I ever dreamed.” – Valerie Lombardo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so here I am lying about my updates again-- it's the 13th, I said this would be up on the 14th. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> I came to realise I work all day tomorrow and will be out late after, and then am hiking all day the 15th in the middle of buttfuck nowhere so that wasn't an option either... hav this chapter a day early oh also i split it in two so expect another one soon ✌️

Adashino hadn’t been sure what to make of Ginko’s request, but he sat down beside the man anyway and tucked the iris he held into the loose collar of his yukata. He tried not to let the warmth show on his face, the sudden openness his friend offered in so many different forms that Adashino could be nothing but surprised at.

Ginko often was distant, disinterested, but not from malice― and to hear him ask something like this, query something that was of interest to Adashino, it made the doctor hesitate in surprise.

“I… I suppose it depends what you want to know― there are multiple different sorts of energy, all different and yet many sorts of similar.” 

He waited for Ginko to say something, to offer a cue to stop or continue, but he received neither. Instead, his friend's fingers fiddled with what looked like some kind of instrument, though what it was Adashino was as yet unsure. There were other pieces strewn around on the floor, and the mushi-shi was focused intensely on them; when his head was tilted slightly to listen, Adashino continued: 

“I’m not sure there’s really anything I can tell you that you wouldn’t already know about the subject,” he hesitated. “You’re quite well-versed in the sciences, yourself.”

Ginko tilted his head, his lips curving ever so slightly― anyone who did not know him might not even recognise such a motion as a smile. “Sometimes that’s not the point, though.”

There was something in his voice that made Adashino’s heart press harder against his chest― it was wry, it was knowing, and there was something deeper under it than plain curiosity. “If you insist.” He chewed his tongue, conceding.

It seemed nearly bizarre Ginko was listening aptly, so terribly out of place. Adashino frowned and thought of the bamboo forest they had passed through, and how Ginko had politely disregarded what he was saying the entire time he’d been saying it. How he’d done the same weeks before as they’d passed a site of recent volcanic activity, and Adashino had discussed excitedly the rocks strewn about while the other man ignored him. How there was a constant, chronic disinterest in anything Adashino spoke on for too long. But here, in this place, in this time… there was a spark of light in his eye, so terribly green, a hunger Adashino had not often seen. It set something low in his stomach, hot and desperate.

The doctor swallowed the feeling, ignoring the sweat on his palms that had started to form. “Is there anything specific you were concerned about? You had asked me about that European book I owned.”

Ginko hummed at the question, pausing his hands for a moment to consider what was being asked quite seriously. “Yes, I… Yumiko had mentioned this place restores health, but I’m wondering if there may be a toll she hasn’t been told of.” He took a pause, during which hefished out a cigarette and a book of matches from his cabinet. “I’d like to talk to the owners, later, although I think for now I might leave it alone until I know more about the mushi itself.” Adashino opened his mouth to protest Ginko’s smoking, to tell him it was rude, and then closed his mouth without speaking as Ginko lit the tobacco, eye focussed on the doctor the entire time. His lips curled up. “There’s a rumour about a seed that grants fertility to the land around it, for example,” he said. Smoke tumbled from his mouth, and Adashino longed to touch the other man even half as gracefully as it did, a fraction as softly. “But as the land bears its crop against all odds, someone will die in payment of the bounty.” He took the cigarette from his mouth and frowned. “I suppose it’s a rumour only, this seed, but this spring makes me wonder if the two may be related. People may think they’re using something for good, but that’s not all there is to it.”

Adashino stared at Ginko’s fingers, tracing them with his eyes as he fiddled with his cigarette. He felt wonder gripping his chest, stealing his words-- this world Ginko walked in, one he now stood in too, and all its marvel seemed to surround him. “It’s entirely possible,” he offered, breathless. “Energy exists in finite amounts, after all. Cost and reward, and all.” 

He shook himself and considered this for a moment, considered how it might apply to something he couldn’t even see. He watched Ginko’s fingers place his cigarette back into his mouth. Adashino pushed down the ache in his own limbs, the desire they held to reach out and to hold. He fiddled with his yukata, folding the fabric around his lap. 

“As energy seems to disappear, all it’s doing is really changing form. Likewise, if it seems to be appearing from nowhere, that’s absolutely impossible. Energy is finite, and it can neither be created nor destroyed― simply transformed. This is a very observed and well-documented thing.”

“Transformed,” the mushi-shi echoed, voice soft, looking from his arm to his microscope. He wore his mask again, careful porcelain, but Adashino held his tongue. “Everything in the universe follows this, yes?”

“Everything that we’ve known thus far,” he answered softly. He thought of the mushi he wore in his hair, and how even they seemed to feed from something. “There are some spiritualists who ascribe to it entirely separately from physics, as well,” he added. “There are those who say that spiritual energy has no beginning nor end either, and that we merely move from form to form through time, through life and death. I think the idea sounds rather beautiful, actually; although some beliefs say that your own ill endeavours will be returned unto you in the same sort of manner.” He shivered for a moment, if not entirely for effect. “Good energy and goodwill follows those who seek it, and misfortune will eventually befall those who do evil.”

Ginko hummed, short and tuneless, considering what he said. Adashino sat beside him still, looking down and realising that the object Ginko had been assembling was a microscope. It seemed to never end, the oddities he was able to carry around with him― perhaps that was why his pack seemed so heavy.

An errant thought crossed into his mind.

“Have you ever heard the story of the Crane's Return of a Favour?”

Ginko jumped, evidently startled by the question, and then turned back to his microscope. “No.” He chewed his cigarette in silence.

Adashino knew that was a lie, and shrugged― everyone knew the story, even the evasive mushi-shi. He leaned back where he sat and sighed. “I’m sorry, I just recalled something― even such a common folk-tale is rooted in transformation.” He could nearly smile, laugh at such a curiosity. “My mother always told me the whole point was that no love comes without sacrifice…” He tilted his chin up until he was staring at the ceiling, at the long panels of wood that formed its frame. He closed his eyes and thought of nights many years past, nights he hadn't thought of a long while. It set something painful into his heart. “She insisted that the story was about sacrifice, but I always thought it was about that woman transforming her love into something that others could value, too. So that others might understand her heart.” He allowed himself, at last, a laugh: both at his own misunderstanding, and at the naivety of the statement. “Wouldn’t it be useful if we could transform our feelings like that, too?”

As the doctor opened his eyes, he saw that Ginko’s stare was fixed on the flower tucked into his collar. His chest felt warm at the softness in the gaze, at the comfort within it, something he could nearly call familiar. “You already do― be careful what you wish for.” Ginko looked up to his face and nodded, then touched the crown of his own head.

The doctor felt heat creep into his cheeks, heart falling― he’d almost forgotten what he wore, a banner only Ginko could see though he couldn’t possibly understand. He let out a breath, heavy, the weight of his embarrassment. “How’s my garden? It’s gotten quite bad, I imagine.” 

The mushi-shi shook his head, but there was a wry smile on his lips. “I’m not telling you that.”

Adashino sighed and wondered if the small, blue flowers danced in his hair like overgrown clovers, or like some sort of weed far worse. He looked down at his lap in shame, imagining how he must appear to Ginko: a complete fool, of course, lost in his own love and unwilling to part with it. A victim of his own heart. His face suddenly felt like it was burning, hot with embarrassment. He hadn’t considered it since his walk through the fog, his own selfishness, and it rose up to greet him suddenly. 

And yet he remembered the absolution, shaped like a silver silhouette on a run-down porch, shirt sticking to rain-soaked skin. _I wouldn’t mind if you stayed._ Ginko hadn't known what sort of rope he'd tied to Adashino's drowning heart, the lifeline he'd extended and how desperately it was clung to. The mercy he’d offered.

Adashino looked back to the other man, who was busy pulling a glass slide from his pack, and traced this shape with his eyes. He wondered why he’d never noticed the gentle blush of pink on the edges of Ginko’s ears until now, so warm against the white of his hair. It was a marvel, a softness he’d not yet been able to consider. He wanted to press his lips against that colour, he thought, to run his tongue along skin he’d never tasted― and yet he stayed where he was, contenting himself with the distance that was offered, letting the want simmer in his chest unspoken, sit heavy against his tongue.

He knew, then, in that silence between them as he always had before, why he refused to let any of it go despite how foolish it made him seem to anyone who would know. He loved the warmth of being near, requited or not. He allowed himself to smile.

“I’m going to go talk to Yumiko, now.” Adashino rose and resisted the urge to press his fingers into the other man’s hair, to hold and keep, and instead busied his fingers tidying the folds of his yukata as he stood. “Let me know what you find.”

Ginko nodded, following the doctor with his eye as he crossed the room. “Sure.” Adashino wondered if he was imagining how the other man’s stare lingered. Surely, he was. Nothing Ginko ever did was a beat longer than it needed to be. Nothing ever, at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🌺 The concept discussed here is [ The Law of Conservation of Energy ](https://www.thoughtco.com/law-of-conservation-of-energy-605849). It relates very strongly to all aspects of physics and chemistry, and states that the amount of energy existing in the universe is finite-- it can neither be created nor destroyed, simply transformed. ~~look im a chemist and I had to sneak that in somewhere ok its like one of my favourite things~~  
>  🌺 The tale Adashino mentions can be found [ here](https://www.kyuhoshi.com/tsuru-no-ongaeshi/). To those who do not know it, in brief itinvolves a crane who is saved from near-death by a man; she returns the favour by making him a shawl of her own feathers, at the cost of her own health and vitality.
> 
> thank u all as always my crops have been watered by your kind comments, kudos and messages [on tumblr](http://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com/) and i can die happy now


	17. Nature Does Not Rush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Transformation isn’t sweet and bright. It’s a dark and murky, painful pushing. An unraveling of the untruths you’ve carried in your body. A practice in facing your own created demons. A complete uprooting, before becoming.” ― Victoria Erickson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaah im sorry if you're reading this as it's posted (August 13th 2020) this is a **double update**. Go back one chapter and read that first!
> 
> also yikes I split a chapter Im sorry, I think the chapter count is stable from here on out .... jus 3 more to go!

Adashino found Yumiko outside, sitting amongst a patch of small flowers, weaving them into circlets not unlike the one of mushi he supposed he wore on his head. She hummed to herself as she tied them, some song Adashino had never heard, her voice full of love and soft promises. There were other strangers who milled by, half-shadows to his vision, voices fading into the background as he approached Yumiko.

The doctor came to stand at her shoulder, his feet bare in the grass and soundless as he approached. “Are you enjoying the sun, Yumiko?”

The woman jumped, her braided hair flipping over her shoulder as she turned to greet him in surprise. “Oh, doctor Adashino! Yes, quite, I was just―”

He waved a hand in dismissal, cutting her off. “Please, _Adashino_ suits me just fine. I’m on a break too, you know.” He sat himself down where he was, close to her but distant enough she might set her flower crown down between them, amongst the patch of stems and petals growing there. “Vacation, right?”

Yumiko nodded and turned to face him. She still wore her own yukata, not one of the inn’s, tied up above her swollen belly― he admired the patterns on it, the soft greens with flecks of white, and he traced it along her figure with his eyes. He thought she looked beautiful in it, and yet his mind kept wandering back to broader shoulders, white hair, wondering what another might look like clad in those colours. His ears flushed at the thought.

“Maybe so, but a title goes with you even if your job doesn’t.” Yumiko grinned, and Adashino was pulled from his wandering thoughts. “Are you enjoying the trip yourself? Yours was much more spontaneous, after all.”

He considered, chewing his stitched lip as he tried to collect himself. He should probably remove them soon, he thought… And then he thought of Ginko, of falling asleep next to him on the tatami, of seeing the line of his chest beneath a yukata for the first time, of seeing the man take a sip from a teacup like it belonged to him and not to Adashino even though he knew, and wanted to say _yes_. But that wasn’t what Yumiko was asking. “I haven’t had much of a chance, really,” he decided. “It’s barely mid-morning, after all.”

At that, she grinned again. “You’re right… there’s plenty of time to feel things. Kinji seems so sour lately, I suppose I’m worried I’m imaging this place nicer than it is.”

The doctor looked around, taking in the deep greens of the landscape and the shadows of the mountains. The sky was vibrant overhead, the clouds so terribly white against the soft blue of the morning. It stole his breath, each and every time, and he could never stop noticing such a thing.

“I don’t think you are,” he said sincerely. “Kinji’s probably worried for you, but he’d be blind to not see the beauty here.” He closed his eyes for a short moment and took a deep breath, letting the heavy air wrap around his lungs. It was familiar, in a way, the wood and the dirt and the scent of the clear breeze; he knew it in the form of a man who wandered in his heart. He smiled at it, the thought, wanting perhaps to stay in this place longer than he should. There was something to be loved about it.

Yumiko tilted her head at him, chin lowering, and she fiddled with the flowers she wove. Adashino's face fell at the sight. “He worries a lot… he’s my brother, he has a right to, but he worries because he doesn’t understand.” She frowned.

Adashino reached between them and pulled a flower from the earth, twirling it between his fingers. He thought of the iris tucked beside his chest, how delicately Ginko had held it out to him, how lovingly. As though he knew, had known, though such a thing was impossible.

“It’s not his fault,” the doctor offered softly, “some things aren’t meant to be understood the way we want them to be. The world is made of small truths, absolute, but each of us has our own interpretation of them that’s shaped by experience and lack thereof.” He smiled down at the flower he held, a small thing with wilting white petals, and then looked back up to Yumiko. “The most you can do is simply listen, sometimes, and try to find their root and how it branches to you.”

Yumiko drew in a breath, long and heavy and somewhat defeated. “That sounds beautiful when you say it like that,” she said. Adashino thought of Tanyuu, many weeks earlier, how the young woman had called him a secret romantic. Perhaps he was one after all. “But all the same, doctor Adashino, I don’t think it’s ever quite that simple.”

Adashino laughed― first, at the honourific, then, at her honesty. “Just _Adashino_ , I insist.” He smiled. “And no, of course nothing is that simple, but the thought of such a thing comforted you for a moment, didn’t it? It made you think it _could_ be like that.” 

She set the circlet she was weaving down in the foliage between them, so careful it bordered on nervous. “Yes,” she admitted.

Adashino set his own flower down and picked up the circle of stems Yumiko had woven, turning it over in his hands. He thought of the weaves Haruko had taught him, the gentle _kumihimo_ braids and how they emulated the weave of vines without so much as meaning to. Adashino took the circlet of flowers, braided so softly, and placed it atop Yumiko’s head.

“Then that’s good, if you have a moment of comfort,” he insisted, adjusting the flowers in her hair. “But if you wouldn’t mind my asking so, have you tried to look at the root of your brother’s frustration? Or are you just sitting and wondering why he won’t see your own?”

Yumiko frowned at him from under the flowers, but didn’t brush off his touch. She let him continue to fiddle with her hair, with the crown she’d made. “Do you have a brother, Adashino? A sibling of any kind?”

He leaned back and admired the circlet she wore, at how carefully the colours had been picked to compliment each other, and then shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not.” He imagined his own crown of flowers moved when he did, but of course he could never know.

“Well,” Yumiko started, picking more flowers to start tying together, “it’s contradictory. I love him, but he makes me so… so _angry._ I could punch him sometimes, but I love him too much to do that.” She began braiding, frowning down at her hands. Adashino was slowly beginning to realise that she was doing it from nervousness, rather than a desire to offer the finished work to be worn. His heart pinched, knowing the feeling of needing to fidget. "It’s like that, all the time, a thousand times over.”

Adashino knew immediately he had no idea what she was feeling, no way to bridge the gap she was trying to describe. “I’ll admit that’s something I can’t quite understand, I’m sorry.” He thought he would be honest about it― though he saw sets of siblings in his village, and the way they danced around each other day after day, he’d been raised alone and would never be able to so much as put a finger on the emotion Yumiko was trying to express. That was exactly the sort of thing he’d been saying about Kinji, anyway. “Nevertheless, could I offer some insight as an outsider?”

She rolled her eyes, but smiled anyway. “Of course.”

He wondered if this was how Haruko had felt, seeing him so torn, and yet the answer before him that he had so obviously continued to deny. He considered that may owe the woman an apology, an apology for his own need to be difficult and selfish; how easy it was to see answers when one took a step back. “He loves you very deeply, and watching you offer your own life for something he can’t know is difficult for him to do.”

The moment he spoke the words to existence, he knew it was a mistake: there was no apprehension to be had in any motion he’d ever expressed before. No reason to worry, to see worry in any part of this place or the solace Yumiko had told him it might offer.

At least, no reason aside from her brother’s own apprehension.

Yumiko’s smile turned to a frown, her eyebrows pinching. She glared at Adashino, suddenly cold, and he felt his blood turn to ice. “My _life?_ What did Kinji say to you?” Her voice was low, almost threatening, a tone he’d never heard before from her. He shivered under her tone. “Did he put you up to this?”

Adashino pressed his hands into his face, feeling the stitches on his temple catch under his fingers. “That’s not important...”

“No,” she snapped, “it _is_. My brother convinced you I’m a desperate and lonely woman, out of my mind with grief, didn’t he? _Didn’t he_? He’s told you I’ve no reason left in my head, that I’m here for a fantasy that doesn’t even exist!” 

Adashino shrunk under her words, under the accusations no matter how untrue they were. “He asked me to talk with you,” he said through his fingers. “I’m sorry, I’ve overstepped.”

“Yes, you have.” 

A long silence followed, and slowly Adashino pulled his hands from his face. He looked at her through the veil of his discomfort, his unease, and all the fear he’d been holding fled before her slouched form: 

“No one can understand,” she whispered. "Not Kinji, not my husband… and certainly not you.”

It was like a knife, sharp and cold, deliberate or not. Adashino’s cheeks were hot with shame, beating against his skin at the softness of what she said, at the defeat in her voice. He thought of weeks earlier, of very different words that had filled him with the same sort of pain. _Maybe you could even learn to forget._ Yumiko yielded words as a weapon, though those that injured him were not those she had perhaps intended for such a purpose.

“Sometimes we have to settle for what we _have,”_ he tried. His voice was hoarse, so low he wasn’t sure she could even hear him. “There are things we know, things we can’t change, things we have to settle with.” He looked down at his lap. “Understanding or not.”

Yumiko scrubbed her palm across her face, shaking her head slowly. "I don't want to settle." Tears continued to run down her cheeks, and she blinked them away each time they formed anew. “Please don’t take this away from me. There’s no reason to.”

Adashino felt his heart soften for her, seeing the desperation in her eyes, the sheer sorrow of something in them he would never be able to know. Not the way she did, and so who was he to scold her? “I won’t…” He couldn’t do that. It wasn’t his place. “I can't. But you should understand what this place is, that perhaps it’s too good to be true. Nothing in this world is without a price.”

  
“I’d give anything.”

In her eyes, dark with desperation and the certainty of her need, he saw a fragment of himself. Of his own weakness, his selfishness. He remembered sitting in gravel, in the dirt, his foot bleeding as he fled from the pain of being told to give up his heart. He remembered sitting there, face in his hands, wondering why it was the world had wanted to take the one thing away from him that he had wanted to keep most. How desperately he’d clawed at his own emotion, willing to die for it, to do whatever it was that was asked of him simply so he might keep his love for himself.

He remembered someone small, the fire of her eyes so much bigger than her frame, and the way she’d sat down next to him as he’d held back a sob. How she’d looked at him, how she’d seen parts of him he’d not meant to show, and how she forgave him for how ugly it was. 

“I’m sorry, Yumiko,” he told the woman in front of him, his heart wavering at the memory he held. “I understand. It’s… it will be okay, I’m not here to take anything away. I couldn't do that.”

That was why he’d come here, was it not? To ask of her to reconsider, but not to force such a thing upon her. To tell her that she could never know what it was that may be asked of her, not until it was already gone.

“Would you wait, for a few more days?” He requested, looking not at her face but at the patterns on her yukata, the greens and whites weaving through the fabric. “Please. There’s something here that lies in the truth you heard, the promise of those waters, but there’s something behind it that worries me, worries Kinji, worries Ginko.” His heart was so heavy, his shoulders stooping under its weight as he considered what Ginko had told him between the spaces of his questions. Of rearrangement, of energy, of the mushi that lived in a spring here in the mountains, invisible but real all the same. “No blessing comes without offering; please consider how divine such a thing would be. And yet..." he looked up from his lap, looking across the sprawl of the grounds, the buildings, the lonely sky overhead. “I understand the appeal, but some things may be too good to be anything besides fantasy.” 

Adashino gazed over to meet Yumiko’s eyes, at last, and found her returning his tare with conviction. It made him want to shiver, but he held still. “You say you would give anything, but would you wait a few more days to know what _anything_ may actually be?”

She didn’t answer, and instead went back to weaving her flowers together. Her fingers were shaking. There was an intense focus to what she was doing, and he knew how deliberately she was _not_ looking at him.

Adashino could not judge her― he understood her avoidance, felt it heavy against his bones. She thought he was criticising her, though his words said otherwise, and she thought he was here to patronize her before leaving her alone to soak in her sorrows. He felt like he had failed.

That wasn’t it, his reason, and she needed to know that.

“I told myself I’d do anything, too,” Adashino found himself confessing, so soft the wind nearly stole it. The words left his mouth before he could stop them, an admission he hadn’t realised he was about to make. “And I’m… I’m glad I did, I’m glad I made that choice. But it hurts, it hurts in ways that I might never have known if I’d just walked away.” 

He found himself fiddling with the iris in his collar, pulling it out to twist it between his hands. He thought about walking through the fog, asking himself if he was happy. And he was― but between the spaces of it, there was a loneliness he didn’t want to look at, a pain in his ribs that pinched when he drew breath. He couldn’t ignore it forever, couldn’t act like it wasn’t there. He’d seen it in the shadow the _kodama_ tree, tasted it whenever Ginko had turned away from his touch, heard it when the man hummed disinterest at his words. 

“I can’t go back and tell myself that I was a fool, but I want you to know that sometimes it does cross my mind. There is a version of me I’ll never know, one of a man who could have turned back and been resigned but happy, and part of me wonders if I may have been better as him after all.” He laughed at himself, at his own selfishness again. He thought of how Ginko had flinched away from his touch, how he always did, and he wanted to do the same at the memory. "But I can’t change that now, can I? I made the choice to pay for what I wanted, and I won’t know if that was a mistake. It was an easy choice to make, for me, but my price wasn’t my health, it wasn’t my life... what is the point of holding a wish if you can’t enjoy receiving it? How do you decide if it’s worth it if the cost isn’t known?”

Yumiko looked at him, _at_ him, the way Tanyuu had as she’d sat beside him all those weeks ago in the middle of the road. His head spun, everything feeling like a great weight upon his shoulders. It hurt once more to breathe, to look at her and see that understanding in her eyes, an understanding he wished she didn’t have.

“What was your wish?”

Adashino wanted to cry, suddenly, but the sound came out as a choked and stupid laugh. He felt as though she were asking while already knowing the answer, and the reason she spoke was so he might say it for himself. He thought of Tanyuu once more, of how she had done the same.

“To be near,” he admitted, nearly a curse. “To keep my love." He held the iris in his fingers, so tight the stem pinched under his grip. He let the flower go, laying it in his lap in defeat, resignation. “And it will never be returned to me.”

“That sounds terrible,” Yumiko said softly. He felt her hand close on top of his, her thumb running against his knuckles in comfort. Her fingers were far too tiny, slightly out of place against his own, and yet at once it felt a luxury to have, to feel. He wanted to pull away, and all the same he wanted to stay, to accept something in place of his own longing.

“It’s not really all terrible,” he consoled her. For all his sorrow, there was so much more, so many more veins and lines to run, an infinite sea of heat inside his chest. Adashino closed his eyes. He wondered if Yumiko could see him the way Haruko had, see what he carried so plainly while he himself looked away. “I wake up next to him and… I can smile, you know, and I can forget how much it hurts. It’s the most wonderful thing in the world, in the end-- I have something in part, instead of not at all. But I knew the outcome before I paid my toll.”

Her fingers tightened on his hand, and he squeezed back. When he opened his eyes, he saw her tracing lines on his face, her eyes so deep he knew that she at last understood. That she knew he understood _her_. 

“I’m not telling you to _not_ ,” he said quietly, “but I want you to know what you might give up for this. Make sure you know it, make sure you understand it. I would love to tell you that the blessing of this place is what you think it is, but there are some things in this universe that are simply untrue. _Please,_ Yumiko, give Ginko and I time to learn this place, this price, and then make your decision.” He squeezed her hand again, so small in his. “That’s all I’m asking.”

Yumiko seemed so tiny in front of him, so small as the sun hit her hair and danced off the flowers woven around her head. So many bright colours, and yet in the shadow of her indecision Adashino felt as though the beauty of the world was muted, nearly dark, waiting for a time to return that might never come. “I will,” she finally answered. “I’ll wait. I’ll wait until you tell me the cost, the _real_ cost... But I won’t say I won’t pay it at all, you know. I came here knowing I might lose something in turn.”

Adashino smiled, feeling pity and worry swim in his chest like the beginnings of a storm. He held his concern back, knowing it was not his place or time to comment. “I know. Believe me,” he told her, “I really do know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (August 21st, 2020) : because the last three chapters are like... accomplishing a lot of things in terms of closing things up, they will be posted more erratically / not on a set schedule as I work on edits for them. I really want the content to be good, to be worthy of posting so I want to take my time.
> 
> In the meantime, please either [send me prompts or ask questions, or just general chit-chat with me on tumblr!](http://jaxtonstrash.tumblr.com/ask) I love it. Please come say hello!


	18. Giving Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “His whisper was the softest sound I ever knew, which seemed to bring the loudest heartbeat.” ― Dominic Riccitello

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh hello i have a chapter after 50 years in limbo! ٩(●ᴗ●)۶
> 
> Thank you everyone for sticking with this, it'll be wrapping up very shortly and I just... the amount of response is more than I had ever expected, I'm so humbled and grateful for it, and I'm looking forward to closing this piece even though at the same time it brings me an enormous amount of pain... I just... love these two... so much... (ಥ﹏ಥ) and I love that you all love them too... (♡´艸`)

The stones were cold upon his feet, and he felt it strange to walk with nothing under him but the earth itself, rock and dirt and grass between his toes like it had been so many years ago, when he’d woken beneath a clear, bright moon with no memories save his name.

Grass swayed in the wind, a soft relief from the warmth of the sun. Ginko stood still and tilted his head towards the sky, letting the light caress his face in a way that made him understand the man with his wings of wax, why he might give himself up to such a feeling. It was soft, it was tender, and it was so terribly welcoming. 

He was beginning to understand, perhaps by accident what Adashino was holding in his heart.

The mushi-shi shook his head and resumed his walk, considering the other man and the feelings he kept so close. Ginko wondered if he ought to ask again, to see if Adashino might open himself at last, but a large part of him though such a thing would be foolish. Perhaps cruel, for he knew nothing of how tender his friend might still feel. The falling flowers may not be testament, Ginko thought, to Adashino moving on― rather, it may speak of someone who was thinking of him in return.

Ginko wasn’t sure which one he wanted, but then he realised it was not his choice. It was not his decision, his right, nor even his business to so much as consider any outcome of this. It was Adashino’s, and his alone; he’d said his piece, asked the man to stay by his side, but it was not his place to keep him there. He couldn't feel robbed of anything, no matter the end.

The more time passed, though, the more the mushi-shi was wondering exactly what it would feel like to have Adashino leave once more-- for things to return to how they had been before, as it were. To wake up alone and fall asleep with no one beside him. While it was a familiar idea, it felt suddenly… more lonely than it ever had before.

Ginko frowned at himself, at his thoughts, at the things he should not be allowing himself to consider. There was a time and place for worry, for selfishness, and it was not the present. In the present, what he had to do was focus. 

He turned his thoughts back to what he’d seen under his microscope, instead. It was incredibly frustrating, trying to catalogue in his mind what his eyes had observed, and to do so in a way that made a scientific sense of it. He thought of what Adashino had said earlier, about transformation and creation and destruction, and wondered if those were the right words for it.

He turned his eye upwards, sighing. He didn’t feel like thinking at all, if he were honest with himself. Perhaps it was time for a break, however brief.

Ginko made his way towards the main changing-house, one that served as a gateway into the many onsen the countryside retreat had to offer, and extinguished his cigarette into a stone tray at the door. The shoji slid easily open, and he let himself into the side of the building that was marked for men’s use.

The room was quiet, cold, a thin humidity sticking only to the tiled floor. He vaguely recalled the maze of rooms from earlier that morning, but in the light of day it didn’t seem quite the same. In this light, this time, it felt so still and welcoming. It could almost convince him to stay. He thought maybe he could at least wander through it, and it could allow him some time in quiet thought.

He didn’t undress in the changehouse, not having his towel, but sat down on one of the benches and took the time to rinse his feet in a small basin left out for the purpose. Satisfied, the mushi-shi stoof and cut through the room and its many benches, hoping he wasn’t intruding on any sort of set schedule or patronage that wasn’t his own to oblige. Thankfully, as he stepped into the next room he found other guests soaking in stone and wood-sided tubs, arms propped along the sides and white towels over their heads, most lost in the relaxation and paying him no heed. 

“Sorry,” he muttered anyway, passing through yet again and stepping quickly back outside; he was the only one fully-clothed. He felt foolish, disrespectful, and realised he should not have made such a stupid choice― it was too late to walk back on it now, though. Instead, Ginko bowed his head and rushed through the room; he excused himself through another shoji door with a wince. 

The humidity of the previous room dissolved off his skin, but was soon replaced with a fresh wave of steam as he found himself standing along the edge of a stone-lined pool. It, like the smaller and more decorative ponds, was lined with shrubbery and flowers, as well as a small set of wooden sculptures of birds. He felt relieved, content that this was a place he might sit in silence, watch the mushi float about without disturbance―

“Hey, Ginko!” 

The mushi-shi jumped at the sound of a voice, raising his eye across the water. Through the steam, he caught sight of tanned shoulders and a shock of dark hair, a white cloth draped over it. His heart was in his throat, but soon settled as he recognised the silhouette. 

“Adashino?”

The doctor squinted and waved, wading through the waist-deep water towards his friend. “You shouldn’t bathe in your yukata, you know, it’s quite impolite. It’s etiquette to remove it in the changehouse. Were you raised on backroads or something?” 

Ginko rolled his eye and padded over to the edge of the pool. Adashino was leaning his arms on it, looking up at his friend with a grin. “I didn’t truly consider…” He stopped himself, knowing he’d considered it if only in passing. “I forgot my towel,” he admitted.

“Hm, fool’s mistake,” Adashino chided, but there was a smile on his face. “Regardless, it’s nice to see you again before lunch. At least sit down. Too much hot water might be bad for you right now, but dipping your feet wouldn’t be a terrible idea. You could use a proper rest.”

Ginko sighed and nodded, sitting down on the driest part of the stone edging he could find. Adashino grinned, resting his cheek against the edge and watching as the mushi-shi set his toes into the water, then pulled up the edges of his yukata so that his legs could submerge to his knees. The water was hot against his skin, but he kept his face neutral and did his best to relax into the sting.

“Did you find anything interesting this morning?” Adashino prompted. 

Ginko shrugged, looking over at his friend the way his eyebrows curved up in interest, and the goofy towel he had draped over his head. Something warm pressed inside his chest. “Tell me about your chat with Yumiko instead,” he countered. “How did it go?” He didn’t want to talk, not anymore, but rather content himself with the glow of his friend’s voice.

Adashino frowned and sat up straight, pulling his arms back into the water. “Is it that awful?”

Ginko shook his head. “It’s difficult to say.” He opened his eye again and looked over to his friend, preferring not to think of the things he'd studied earlier. “I’d rather hear you talk instead, if that’s alright.”

Adashino chewed at his lip, nodding. In that moment, Ginko realised that the man had taken his stitches out, and there was a thin line of pink where they had once been. He wondered if, given time and care, it would come to be like the scar on his collarbone―thin and white―or if it would blend seamlessly into his lips as it had before. He wondered how soft it felt, the healing flesh weaving back together, how delicate it might feel to touch.

“Yumiko agreed to be patient,” Adashino spoke, and Ginko jumped. His voice was low, concerned, nearly tentative. “Although I’m not sure I accomplished what Kinji wanted, I did what I could. She’s a very sad woman, but in the end there’s a hopefulness in her I can’t scold.”

Ginko nodded. “That’s more than I had even offered.” He felt poorly for that, hours later. He considered how rude he may have come across to Kinji in his own tiredness, his own reserved way of speaking the evening before, and wondered if he should apologise.

Adashino shrugged and sunk down into the water, stopping only once his chin brushed its surface. “All considerations of potential death aside, though, this onsen is rather nice.” He grinned, sinking his chin further into the water. “My sore legs are certainly enjoying this. I’m not sure you know how heavy that stupid pack of yours is.”

Ginko brushed sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his yukata, nodding. He thought of the greenery and the mountains, the open sky and the lush forest around them. About the sun on his face, so soft and gentle. ”I can’t say I’ve ever had a break like this,” he considered. “Though, is this even a break?”

Adashino shifted the cloth from the top of his head to his forehead, and leaned back casually so the back of his head was in the water. “It could be, if you wanted. Of course there’s the concern for Yumiko, but as with anything you have to take things as they come. Right now, you’re sitting in a warm spa and letting your feet rest. You’re chatting with your friend, just like anyone else. You can allow yourself the hour.” The doctor then sat up, shoulders coming out of the water as he righted himself. “So just enjoy it, right? That’s what it’s for, after all.”

Ginko nodded, wondering if he was supposed to find the sweat sticking to his skin relaxing. Though if it was but for an hour, he could perhaps allow himself a respite. He supposed for others it was easy: both because they did not know of the sorrows that lurked on the edges of the onsen, and that the other patrons were fully submerged and the water washed away the sweat. Ginko sighed and, despite knowing it might be inappropriate, pulled his arms out of the sleeves of his yukata and tied them around his waist, shrugging the outfit down and off his shoulders. He felt his own sweat sticking hot against his skin, and he grimaced.

He thought briefly of Adashino, of sitting beside him in Haruko and Izumi’s home, the collars of his yukata pulled low as he’d fanned himself for the same reason. He felt his ears burn at how he’d scolded the other man weeks ago.

“Careful, Ginko― some visitors might find that _lewd_.” 

The mushi-shi looked over to his friend, to his too-bright grin, and knew Adashino had been thinking of the same thing. The doctor was curiously red as he taunted, but Ginko said nothing of it.

He allowed himself to smile in return, however sheepish. “To be fair, it’s quite warm in here.”

“That’s usually why bathing takes place with no clothes on,” Adashino chided. “You may as well undress entirely at this point, towel or not.”

Ginko shrugged. “I’m fine for now,” he insisted. He wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something that sat low in his stomach and made the thought of undressing where he was rather unpleasant.

“The last time I was at an onsen I was still apprencing in Nagasaki, you know.” Adashino sank back down into the water, seating himself on what Ginko could only assume was a submerged bench. “It’s been almost a decade since then, I think. I lose track of time.”

“I’ve been to natural hot springs, but nothing like this recently,” the mushi-shi answered. “I suppose I can understand the appeal.”

At that, Adashino smiled, then laughed― the motion shook his tanned shoulders, and then he shook his head in turn, towel and all. “You travel the great wide world and all of its beauty beyond anything I’ve ever known, and yet sometimes you speak and it’s like you’ve never done a single thing in your life.”

Ginko’s cheeks grew hot at his friend’s words, though they were spoken with a great fondness.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it in insult.” Adashino said, “it’s an interesting part of you, the things you haven’t known. It’s almost a funny sort of innocence.”

Ginko pressed his fingers into the stone beside himself, ignoring the soft red on his friend’s cheeks and the affection in his eyes. “There are a lot of things I don’t know,” he stuttered. He felt somewhat ashamed of it, ashamed of the way his companion pointed it out. If he were honest, he may say there was more of the world to know than he could ever walk, even given a thousand lifetimes, but it sounded too romantic to say aloud. “I don’t know a lot about you, even,” he said instead.

It was Adashino’s turn to grow red, heat dusting across his cheeks so quickly Ginko knew it was not from the warmth of the water. “ _Me_?” 

The mushi-shi shrugged, not wanting to think of why his friend had become the first example in his mind. He looked down at his own lap, at his feet under the water, trying to ignore how hard his heart pressed against his ribs. He wondered if Adashino could hear it, too, from where he sat. “Of course. For all your talk, you rarely speak about yourself.”

The doctor frowned, dark eyebrows pinching. “Why would I? I’m hardly interesting― at least, not compared to everything else in the world. Surely, of all people you’d know that.” 

It took everything he had not to grow angry at how his friend spoke, at the dismissal in Adashino’s tone. It took everything for Ginko to hold his tongue and pretend those words didn’t bother him, for him to hear them and not flinch at all. How was it that the man did not understand how the sun grew pale in comparison to his eyes, how his passion for everything burned brighter than any lantern, any fire man could make? How did he not see that the very sound of his voice was softer and more kind than the wind in the trees, the song of twilit crickets, the crash of the sea?

“You underestimate yourself,” was all Ginko allowed himself to say. 

Adashino shrugged, and a wave of small, blue petals dissolved as he moved. Ginko flinched as some were taken by the wind, one tumbling against his cheek into soft, warm dust. His friend couldn’t see it, and so the mushi-shi refrained from touching the skin where the flower had died, from rubbing the strange feeling off his face. Distantly, he wondered if Adashino’s affliction was contagious.

“I’m only a small part of this world, Ginko, it’s simply right to see myself as small. It’s not a criticism, it’s just a truth.” Adashino smiled, and something in the way his lips curled made the mushi-shi so terribly sad. “Besides, if you wanted to know something, I’ve already told you that you should have questions before you expect answers.”

He hummed and considered Adashino’s words, so bright, muffled by a scarf as the pair had walked along the side of a faraway valley. Of the bold, reckless light that had taken over his eyes, so radiant he couldn’t help but ache for it when it wasn’t there. Ginko thought for the dozenth time of the sun, of the man who fell into the ocean while reaching for it, and wondered when he’d allowed himself to feel such a way as this. He closed his eye and slouched.

“Well, go on, then: ask a question.” 

Ginko opened his eye as he heard a splash of water; Adashino had over to the edge of the pool, though this time he placed his two hands upon it and hopped out with a surprising amount of grace, twisting so his feet stayed in the water and he was sitting beside Ginko on the stone. The towel he’d had on his head, he pulled down onto his lap. The mushi-shi traced the lines of his shoulders, the shape of his spine, until he realised it was rude to stare and looked away again.

Every question Ginko might have possibly had left his head. He thought of all the nights he’d sat beside his friend, a sake cup balanced on his knee, and all the things that had never been said between them― suddenly, he could remember all of it and none of it at once. He could remember the flush of Adashino’s cheeks when he got drunk, the flash of teeth when he smiled, and yet all the words seemed to fall silent as Ginko tried to recall them. All the things he knew, and all the things he didn’t.

His eye traced his friend’s collarbone, and the thin white line that ran below it, and he felt his mouth go dry. His fingers itched where they lay gripping stone, so much more unforgiving than the softness of skin. 

He nearly said it out loud, the question he’d been asking for days, if not weeks, but he held himself still. _Of course I can’t touch._ He nearly wanted to laugh at himself for even imagining that he could, that he could ever consider himself so free.

His heart was pressing hard against his ribs as he considered, and there was a cold sweat clinging to his neck, creeping along his exposed spine. The ringing in his ears had returned, louder than the soft trickle of the water of the onsen, and the heat was making his head spin.

Ginko blinked, feeling himself begin to sway where he sat. He steadied himself, trying not to think of how close his friend was, how near the other man’s bare body was to his own. “Why don’t you tell me how you got that scar on your collarbone?”

Adashino looked down at himself, frowning, and then looked back to Ginko; in that instant, the mushi-shi decided with a red face that the bird sculptures across the pool were far more interesting. 

“What scar?” 

Ginko turned back, feeling the heat in his face, and tapped at his own chest, tracing a line across his bare left collarbone. He swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat. “It’s a white line.”

Adashino stared at him, perhaps a beat too long, a touch too knowing, and then laughed. “ _Oh_ ,” he grinned. “I broke my clavicle; I fell out of a tree when I was seven. I almost forgot I had it.” 

“Hm,” Ginko said, wondering if the way he’d noticed it said too much. If it did, Adashino did not mention it. “I never knew that. You never talk about your childhood.”

Adashino turned his eyes across the pool, to the statues Ginko had been looking at not moments before. “I feel bad,” he admitted, the words soft and nearly too sad. He closed his eyes and leaned back onto his hands.

Ginko quietly allowed himself to look at his friend, realising he shouldn’t be bothered by the other man’s warmth and how he sat so close. By his nakedness, though he knew he shouldn’t be. Adashino was relaxed beside him, head tilted back, the curve of his throat bared as he looked up at the sky. Ginko traced the line of it, and wondered if anything more beautiful had existed before it, and if maybe he could have the courage to ask such a thing aloud.

“Why do you feel bad?” He asked instead.

Adashino’s smile was soft, nothing more than a twitch of his lips. He turned back, tilting his head, dark hair falling over his forehead again. “Because you don’t remember yours. It would be unfair of me to share mine when you can’t reciprocate, it almost feels like I’d be taunting you.” 

There was something soft and warm pressing in his chest, and it stole his breath-- for an instant, the mushi-shi saw such affection in his friend’s eyes that he was unable to look away. Such a gentle care, over something so small, all Ginko could do was stare blankly.

He eventually looked down at his lap, feeling the heat in his chest working its way down into his belly. “It wouldn’t be a mockery at all, not if you didn’t mean it to be.”

“I prefer to talk about things we can both share.” Adashino clapped a hand onto Ginko’s shoulder, and then as quickly as he had touched, he pulled away. “I…” he hesitated for the first time in many minutes, fidgeting where he sat. “Anyway, I’m not sure what I could tell you about being a child that would be interesting, anyway. It would be much more pleasant to make new memories together, don’t you suppose?”

The imprint of Adashino’s hand burned Ginko’s shoulder, mirroring the sensation that lay on his wrist from a week previous. He wanted to reach up and touch his own skin, to feel the ghost of fingers that were no longer there, but he dug his fingers against the stone of the edging instead. “Yeah,” he admitted. 

He thought of the flower he’d given his friend that morning, how he’d said as much though in other words. He thought of the man’s silhouette as he held Yumiko, carrying her up the mountain without a care for himself. He thought of that same shape on the floor of an old teahouse, face red, dirt and dust clinging to his skin as he had tried to compose himself. He thought of the long days on the road, filled with stories of nonsense and fantasy, and thought fondly that perhaps he’d prefer nothing more in the world.

“Yeah,” he repeated instead. “New memories are more pleasant, I suppose.”

Adashino hummed. “Speaking of new, would you mind if we went back to the room?” Ginko blinked at him, perplexed by the sudden change in tempo. “I’d like to hear what you saw when you looked at that water,” the doctor explained, “if you wouldn’t mind sharing.”

The mushi-shi nodded, still blinking dumbly as his companion hauled himself from the water in one swift motion, grabbed his towel from his lap, and padded to the shoji door of the onsen. As he walked, flowers fell from his hair-- slowly, only a few, tumbling to the ground and dissolving into nothing.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Ginko said, staring at the spot on the floor where the flowers had dissipated. Something heavy sat in his stomach.

Adashino laughed, startling him from the feeling, and waved his friend over. “Perfect. I’ll get us some tea and something to eat, and you can tell me all about it.”

Ginko nodded, eye tracing the lines of Adashino’s fingers and how they held the edge of the shoji door so gently. He wondered if the spaces between them would fit his own, slot perfectly between them.

“Sure,” he said aloud, shaking the thought as he stood and shrugged his yukata back on properly. He knew the answer wasn’t one he should consider, wasn’t one he should allow himself to dwell on. It hurt, somewhere deep inside of him, and he swallowed it down.

He followed Adashino’s footsteps out of the onsen, wondering how many of those steps he had left to keep for his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok look I went back and re-read all the other chapters I've posted just so that I could get to this with a fresh mind and I'm like lying on my bedroom floor crying from feelings...........
> 
> (༎ຶ⌑༎ຶ)  just... these two.... _they're so dumb of ass_
> 
> ~~so I have a few pages of extra stuff....~~ [here's an anon google survey if u wouldn't mind telling me if care about me sharing it or](https://forms.gle/PEd7BTfaSi8BxycX6)


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